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 I try to create art that causes the viewer to start seeing old things, discarded things, items around them everywhere, as having beauty of color and texture. I take old surfaces - wooden panels, ink-stained blocks, deconstructed household furniture - and without changing their color and texture, I make them part of something colorful, genuine, and beautiful. From each individual square inch up to the entire composition I want my work to bring joy and awareness. I am deeply aware of art history and styles and able to think on my feet, so to speak, by using and creating with whatever I find. I strive for creating unique pieces that stubbornly ask the viewer to enjoy the old color and texture that our world normally discards. I want the viewer to literally come face-to-face with the past, to see the real value in something of little or no value, and to be transformed in the way they view this aspect of our world. My current artwork relies heavily on finding old boards and flat surfaces (even sides of old moving vans!) with original paint. My art is very labor intensive from discovering materials, to composition, to assembling the final piece. It involves decades of familiarity with old objects, constant travel and searching to gather items and also cutting, glueing, screwing, waxing, framing and touching up.
I have spent almost 35 years exploring old buildings, antiques, art, and culture, especially talented people and the process of creativity, as well as people's relation to historic places and objects. I have lived in cities with rich history and culture - Boston, Toronto, Buffalo, Rochester - pursuing my passion of historic artistic exploration and discovery. In the mid 1990's I began to accumulate "art supplies", things of great history and design, but with little economic value: wood type, old papers, carved printing blocks, metal cast numbers, brass stencils, boxes of old smoking pipes, busted antique airplane models, old puzzles, doll heads, cartons of unused 1950's bottle caps, bird egg collections, curtain rod rings, rusty bolts, etc. As things accumulated, ideas for making art began to form and I started creating sculptures, wall art, assemblages and artistic borders with mirrored centers. My studio is a big warehouse - 5,000 sq.feet of space and thousands of pounds of things of all shapes and sizes constantly "on call" to become parts of my artwork. I am also very proud of my antique business which I started in 1972. It is regarded by a small group of savvy fellow dealers and collectors as a wellspring for items of value. I specialize in unusual items in Folk Art, early American and Country antiques, toys, wooden type and printing industry artifacts, graphic design history, American Indian items, and all forms of industrial objects, from iron based drafting tables to foundry patterns. Many antique buyers go directly from my studio to the most sophisticated shows with items I have discovered. And many of these antique buyers have become patrons of my artwork, some owning multiple examples.
Please contact me for upcoming show information. The following galleries carry selected pieces of my art:
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© Richard Rockford
Art From Historic Materials
Online 
