Bayou Artist: Annie Richardson

For Annie Richardson, art and life are forever influencing each other, and there is a space between where inspiration and creation happen.

Artist Annie Weinstein Richardson is a collector—a collector of words, papers, calendars and music, a collector of old and new places, ideas and experiences. “Everything relates to something else,” she said, “and everything means something.” As an artist, Annie takes inspiration where she finds it. “The subject matter could be anything,” she said. “It could be travel. It could be a napkin.” When inspiration strikes, it’s like a bird taking flight. “And that’s the intuitive side,” she said.

As an example, Annie recalled a time when her son was playing football, and she found herself focused on the shapes created on the field by the various plays. She asked her son to draw some of the plays for her, and a series called “The Game” grew out of those drawings. “I’m really influenced by everything around me,” she said. “It’s about internalizing the experiences you’re going through.” The series was personal for her because of the connection to her son, but something else she loved about the series was that the boys could look at the paintings and see the plays. They could name them, and the paintings sparked conversation for them. She had captured moments of their lives, and she had inadvertently created work that not only appealed to the sensibilities of women but also men.

For Annie, art and life are forever influencing each other, and there is a space between where inspiration and creation happen. One of her favorite quotes comes from the late Robert Rauschenberg: “Painting relates to both art and life . . . . I try to act in that gap between the two.” Rauschenberg combined methods and materials in fresh ways that led him to become one of the most influential American artists of the last century. Like Annie, he traveled broadly and took inspiration from a variety of people, places and experiences. As a result, his work danced passionately between art and life, fusing the two in innovative ways. Like Rauschenberg, Annie’s passion for art and life allow her to draw elements of both into the gap between, which is where the magic happens. It’s where the things and experiences she’s collected are mixed and transformed. Through painting, ideas and vision become tangible.

Annie has been creating for as long as she can remember. With an artist as a mother, she was born with an innate connection to the arts and a desire to nurture it. After studying art at various institutions, including Sarah Lawrence College in Lacoste, France, and Newcomb-Tulane College in New Orleans, Annie completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Of the time immediately following graduation, Annie said, “I didn’t know what area I wanted to go into.” Nevertheless, she continued to foster her own growth as an artist, studying lithography and printmaking at the Cornish Institute in Seattle, Washington.

With a range of experiences and travels under her belt, Annie soon found herself back in New Orleans, exploring a new creative venture: filmmaking. In the early 1980s, she worked as a freelance film producer for commercials, documentaries and music videos. Then, in the mid-1980s, love and marriage brought her north to Ruston, Louisiana, and she’s called the Piney Hills home ever since. After moving to Ruston, Annie took a break from art but continued to embrace life and all its colors. She worked for a brief period as a firefighter for Lincoln Parish Fire District 1 in Vienna and even pursued a private pilot’s license.
Throughout the 1990s, Annie busied herself raising children, but she started to find her way back to art in the early 2000s. During that time, a friend mentioned to her that Edwin Pinkston, one of Louisiana Tech University’s beloved art professors, would soon be retiring. Annie didn’t want to miss the opportunity to learn from Pinkston, so she enrolled in as many of his classes as she could. Along the way she also took painting classes from Peter Jones and drawing classes from Charlie Meeds. It was a time of intense growth and self-discovery that reignited her passion for exploring the dynamics of painting and communicating.
In 2005, Annie’s friend and fellow artist, Patricia Tait Jones, suggested that the two of them put together an exhibition of their work. Annie was hesitant at first but agreed, and the show, called Two Views, which was held at the Bank of Ruston, turned out to be a huge success. Annie said, “We sold all the paintings.” Afterward, she started to work on a larger scale and refine her style. She participated in a number of local and regional exhibitions while also expanding her gallery representation to include Rohm Gallery in New Orleans, Taylor Clark Gallery in Baton Rouge and Iris & Co. in Birmingham, Alabama. Her success also led to representation by Deborah Smallpage Mooney, her agent, as well as inclusion in The Scout Guide-New Orleans.

During this period of dramatic growth, Annie created a series called “Echoes of Italy” inspired by her travels to Italy. The grand façades, patinaed walls and crackled paint infused new life into her work. While in Italy, she also discovered that paint was sold much differently than it was in most stores at home. Instead of the premixed tubes of paint that she was accustomed to, there were whole walls lined with shelves of glass jars filled with pigment in every color you could imagine. “It was like a candy store,” she said. Annie returned home with sacks of pigment in numerous colors and began mixing her own paints. “The colors were so rich,” she said. “It was a life changing experience that really affected my work, providing a language that takes one on a journey.”

Another major shift in her work occurred when Annie started using collage, which has since become one of her most distinctive features. “I’m always moving,” she said, “and I’m always picking up everything.” It just made sense to incorporate these things into her work. One series in particular, “Bayou Blessings,” used Tobin maps related to her life and to her family’s real estate, oil and gas business. Annie said that what’s so intriguing to her about maps is that they go from one place to another, leading to a destination with a journey along the way. But her work not only includes maps. Over the years, her paintings have included menus, sheet music, pages from old books, wine labels (“Labeled Series”), old calendars, dress patterns, yarn, wire and other things that have struck a chord with her. But her ultimate goal by including these things in her work is to strike a chord with the viewer as well—to stir up an emotional response.

In addition to including a variety of mediums in her work, Annie also enjoys learning and experimenting with new techniques, including photo transfers and encaustic painting. As an active member of more than one group of local artists, Annie continually draws on the knowledge and feedback of others. “Everyone brings something to the table,” she said, “and everyone has something to say.” These groups, Gallery 210 and Gallery Fringe: An Art Experience, get together to have demonstrations, workshops and critiques, and they have been an invaluable source of information and support. Annie attributes her involvement in more than one group partly to an insatiable desire to learn new things. “I don’t want to miss something,” she said, “and it’s all so interesting.”

Although changing methods and inspiration have led Annie’s work to evolve, she said, “My voice and conviction remain steady.” For Annie, painting is a way of communicating with the world, but the process is deeply personal, because her paintings inevitably contain remnants of her life. For this reason, there’s a level of intimacy and vulnerability in each piece that only the work itself can express. “My artwork is so personal and heartfelt,” she said, “and I put my heart and soul into it.” There are times when she paints for hours only to realize that the work is not turning out as she’d hoped. These moments are difficult, and she may sand down six hours of work, but afterward, she keeps painting. “It’s like a rollercoaster of emotions,” she said, “and struggles are inevitable when you’re painting. I think it’s all part of the process, but it’s the internal vision you have to believe in.” Because she pours so much of herself into her work, she cares what happens to each piece and remembers where each one has gone. In the same way, she thoughtfully names her pieces, leaving few untitled. Like the paintings themselves, the titles reflect specific times, places, influences and moods.

In her work, Annie said, “Neutral, subtle, monochromatic palettes set the tone and mood while bold and free mark-making creates a dialogue, and multiple layers of paint and collage echo journeys traveled.” Although every part of her creative process is handled with intention and care, one of her favorite things about it is that she can get lost in it. There’s a unique balance of care and freedom. “There’s no preconceived notion of where the painting is going to go,” she said, “and I never know how long it will take, because everything is taken into consideration. It could take two seconds or two hours to make a single line, because it’s got to be in the right place to make the whole thing flow.” Even if she’s doing things around her house that have nothing to do with painting, there’s always a chance Annie will find herself back at the easel painting for hours. In that time, she may also move from one place to another because it’s important that she see her work evolve in variations of light and space, even if that means carrying canvases bigger than she is up and down stairs, in and out of rooms, or in and out of her house. She’s even been known to fall asleep looking at her work as the sun sets.

According to Annie, abstract art involves a background in composition and an understanding of the nuances of balance and placement, which make it one of the hardest genres to work in. “You create a dialogue in your painting,” she said, “and all the shapes and contours have to work together.” It’s as though they’re in conversation with one another. In fact, at the height of her creative process, there may be multiple overlapping dialogues and monologues happening at once. “The movement of line is so important,” she said. “Random mark making and gestural expressions create the monologues and dialogues inside the painting, and each element adds layers that become apparent only as you take the time to explore.”

In those moments, there’s an interplay between elements inside the painting, elements outside the painting, as well as elements of history, experience, knowledge and memory. “It’s almost like monologues within dialogues,” she said. But for Annie, internal tools help her filter through the voices. “I just have faith in my imagination and intuition,” she said. “It’s my way of saying who I am, and the monologues carry elements of surprise and emotion. The work just keeps changing. It goes in different directions. You may start out in one direction, but the surprises and accidents that take form—those create the final narrative. You can sit back and look at something and get excited by what’s evolved. It wakes your senses. The monologue is inside and out—nothing withheld—creating a vision with unlimited boundaries.”

Two years ago, Annie was part of a group exhibition by the Women’s Art Group (now Gallery 210) of Ruston. The exhibition called “More than Words” took place at the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, Alabama. Its title was especially meaningful to Annie, because she believes art transcends language and communicates on another level. “It’s a visual call to awaken the senses,” she said. It involves the senses not only in the impact of a finished piece on its viewer but also in the impact of the process on its creator. Annie especially loves the malleability of paint and how you can add things in and take things out in an endless number of ways.

“I love that art is limitless,” she said. It’s limitless in the number of directions it can go, the number of stories it can tell, and the number of things it can make a person feel. There are times when painting gives Annie a sense of tranquil solitude and other times when it gives her a sense of unbridled freedom, but in both cases, she said, “It’s such a release—it’s like therapy. I get lost, and it’s such a great place to be.” When a painting is finished and is sent out into the world, each viewer will bring a new perspective to it. “But I’m leaving it up to the viewer to take it and see something totally different than what I see,” Annie said. Her hope is that they will appreciate the layers, the embedded dialogues, the relics of lived experience and the stories they evoke.

For Annie, art is about so much more than the work itself. “One of the greatest lessons being an artist has taught me is to experience life and enjoy life,” she said. “There’s so much to see. Art is about life experiences. It can express who we are and where we’ve been. It’s about belief in the journey we’re all on. It’s about exploring. It’s about horizons, faith, intuition, discovery, life lessons and all the elements of surprise.”