Rick began his 46-year arts career in Dayton, Ohio at age eight when in 1956, his mother enrolled him in Saturday morning art classes. She made sure he rarely missed a Saturday for nearly ten years. Now with a Master’s Degree in painting, he's an exhibited painter, author, and sometimes poet and now in retirement, he and his family own an art supply and framing store. With arts degrees, teaching college art for six years, and a 40-year career directing successful community arts centers, in 1991, he was presented the Ohio Governor’s Award for Arts Administration--the state's most prestigious arts honor. He has also been listed in the Marquis Who's Who in America since 2000.

 

His first two books were on how communities can start an arts organization. Silent Rise is his debut memoir begun in 2012 documenting one of the arts centers he spent 25 years developing in a mid-sized Rust Belt city in Ohio under nearly impossible odds. It’s a narrative guide on how communities can utilize the transformative power of the arts to improve their community. He describes the characters, the history, the situations that he experienced over those two and a half decades and takes you through those experiences as if you were there with him.

 

Rick has helped raise their two kids, played the piano and banjo, was a longtime collector of telegraph insulators and now, in his spare time, he paints. Writing about his personal journey and professional growth has been his greatest challenge.