Richard A. Waters

My mother gave me my first watercolor lesson when we lived in Bermuda. I was 11 years old. I went with her to paint on location about 3 or 4 times. My next painting lesson was from the mother of a close friend who was with us one day on a remote beach on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I was exposed to a wide range of the arts as my mother was a patron and hired people like Walter Anderson to do murals at the hotel in Ocean Springs, MS where I was raised. There were also musical groups and musicians who would perform nightly at the hotel lounge.

I did not paint again until my Junior year in college, when I switched my Major (for the 5th time) to fine arts. Up until that point my grades were terrible as I had little interest in the other subject matters. As soon as I began the art courses my grades picked up as did my attendance and I felt like I had found my niche. However, trying to make a living as an artist was beyond me at the time. After graduating, I received an offer to work for a chain of hotels (Jack Tar) and after graduation I worked in a number of locations in different capacities for this chain. At night, after work, I would paint until the wee hours of the morning. The more I painted, the more I realized I was unhappy in my current occupation even though the salary and work were good. So after a year or so, I resigned as assistant manager for a hotel in Biloxi, MS and left for California to develop my painting career. I first lived in Los Angeles and tried to break into the gallery scene there with no luck. I then moved to Sausalito and rented a half-sunken house boat as it was all I could afford. When I ran out of money, I worked as a dishwasher at Juanita’s Gallery at gate 5 in Sausalito. After painting rather intensively for a year I decided it would be best if I went to a good art school in the San Francisco Bay Area and selected the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland as my school. I spent two years there earning my Masters degree (MFA) and during that time expanded into sculpture and 3 dimensional paintings, specifically fiberglass wall reliefs.