Richard's Biography
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I grew up in the quiet suburbs of the beautiful San Fernando Valley, Ca. with my parents,
my brother David and sister Diane.
It seems I always had a gift for art. My father and brother are both outstanding artists so
I guess it's in our genes. While most of my friends were outside busy playing football, I
was usually shut up in my bedroom for hours and hours drawing.
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At age ten I became enthralled with the Disneyland "fun maps" by artist Sam McKim
that were available at the park back then. I would spend hours pouring over them and
soon began laying out my own fantasy theme parks. I even designed the adjacent
themed hotels and monorails to carry my happy guests back and forth.
My greatest creation was called "Smile City" for which I illustrated a huge fun map
on poster board that I colored in with water color markers.
Unfortunatly our pet cat Daisy found it under my bed one day and left her "critique" all
over it...
It wasn't very flattering at all.
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After high school I knew I wanted to do something to ultilize my creativeness, so
eventually I enrolled in the "Interior Designer's Guild", a small college of interior design.
Near the time of my graduation, one of the administrators at the school
suggested I give her husband a call to set up a job interview. A real J.O.B.!
When I found out that her husband happened to be one of the chief designers at Disney
everything went black... when I woke up, I gathered up all my courage and with school
projects in hand, high-tailed it over to WED Enterprises in Glendale, CA, (now known as
Walt Disney Imagineering) for my very first job interview ever.
I was so scared!
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That was the beginning of my career in the theme park biz. Here I was, a mere 20 years old working for Disney for a staggering
$11,000 a year. I was king of the world! Working at Disney at such a young age was so very intimidating and wonderful at the
same time. This was the late 1970's and many of the great Disney legends who had originally created Disneyland with Walt
were still running the place. Master artists such as Herb Ryman, Harper Goeff, Roland Crump, Collin Campbell and John
Hench were all there. The "big projects" at that time were Epcot Center and World Showcase for Disney World in Florida. It was
here that my education really began. Fortunately for me these great artists were always more than happy to share their
knowledge, experience and storys of working with Walt with young artists in training like myself.
It was an incredible learning experience and I will always be grateful for the inspiration and encouragement these great talents
gave to this young novice.
Eventually my work at WED was done and it was time to move on. In the 80's I was asked to join Landmark Entertainment Group
headed by another great ex-Disney showman, Gary Goddard. At the time Landmark was designing Puroland for the Sanrio Co.
(of Hello Kitty fame) in Tokyo, Japan and I was hired on as a set designer. My very first time away from home was the year that I
spent working in Tokyo on that project. What an experience that was! Talk about "culture shock"!
By far, my favorite assignment at Landmark was working on Caesars Magical Empire in Las Vegas. The "Empire" was a magical
land created for Julius Caesar by all the greatest magicians and sorcerers from around the world. Rediscoverd after being lost for
thousands of years and buried hundreds of feet underground. What fun!
Eventually I returned to Disney in the 90's as a Senior Concept Designer and met Paul who was a respected Show Designer
and Art Director there. We both seem to look at the world through a theme park designer's eyes and immediately became friends.
I was hired by Disney to work on what is arguably the greatest Disney theme park ever built; Tokyo DisneySea in Japan.
There was so much designing going on at Imagineering at this time, Disney's Animal Kingdom, The Disney Cruise Line, Tokyo
DisneySea, and California Adventure were all in the works. It was a wonderful, hectic, creative environment.
After that I returned back to Landmark (I seem to be suffering from "tennis ball" syndrome) to create concepts for a large theme
park to be built in Wuhan, China. Unfortunately the project never found the funding it needed and at the same time new projects
for the theme park industry virtually came to a halt. Uh oh, it was time to re-think my career.
And so here we are now, Paul and I, launching what has always been our dream. Our very own business doing what we do best.
Creating art!
I hope that you're enjoying our web site and that our art will bring a smile to your face and remind you of simpler times past.
Look Ma, I got my picture in the paper!
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