Rick was born and grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His higher education included the arts program at the Fine Arts school of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Additional education was at the Milwaukee Area Technical College, the Colorado Institute of Art and various in-house corporate training programs.

Early on, Rick provided some cartooning for the GPU News, a publication for a pioneering gay organization in Milwaukee, Gay Peoples Union. Some years later, Rick moved to Colorado, working as a staff artist and technical illustrator for aerospace, defense and research companies, including one of the largest defense and aerospace contractors in the United States. Working as a tech illustrator influenced Rick's fine art, steering him towards a precise realism, an influence which can be seen in Rick's work today.

Regarding censorship, homoeroticism and my artwork.
I have nothing against eroticism in artwork. It's simply a matter of taste and values tend to be relative to a particular time and place. If you don't like how something looks, don't look at it. I found that if someone is bound to be offended, they will find something to be offended by. For instance, at a time when I use to do a lot of paintings of Americana involving drive-in restaurants and such, there was a woman who was offended by one of my paintings because she thought some of the women in the painting were rendered too sexy. I suppose I should have told her something like, "Geez lady, I'm gay. It's the classic cars I was trying to make look sexy."

I tend not to be offended by art. It's simply a matter of style. If someone does something that's really in-your-face and outrageous, it's probably more a matter of marketing than it is art. Regarding erotic art, the definition of pornography can be rather tricky. Again, I feel that if you don't like something, just don't look at it. I don't do hardcore images, I feel there are plenty of artists doing that, and they do what they do extremely well, so I feel no one's missing out by me not doing hardcore. It's not a matter of self-censorship, it's just that I feel explicit images are too blunt and not my style. Even so, I find there is still an issue with some people when I depict frontal nudity in some of my paintings. I regard nudity in my erotic paintings as matter a fact, how I present it depends on the mood of the painting. I have found that ironically, it's the paintings which show gay men in a social setting without any sexual references or nudity, seem to offend some straight folks the most.

As far as my own style goes, I prefer a subtlety to my compositions, I like one of my paintings to tell a story, suggesting rather than being blunt, letting the viewer make up a story. I think my better images have an involved composition, suggesting a scene from a movie or a stage setting. I believe that's a lot more fun and makes the painting more interesting. When I started writing A PERSON IN A POSITION OF TRUST, I found writing to be similar to building one of my paintings, except that I could set up scenes in a much more complex way.

In the early part of the 21st century, Rick established rickchris.com and began to concentrate his work on producing male and gay themed artwork. A series of events also led him to begin the serialization on the web site of a gay detective novel, A PERSON IN A POSTION OF TRUST, featuring a gay detective named Lynn Gordon (Beef) Matson. The story attracted a following with readers who developed a fondness for the detective. Currently, a second book in the series, CATCH A FALLING STAR, is in the works.

Personal Like and Dislikes
Hmmm, well I don't sit around thinking about my personal tastes. I guess my tastes are pretty eclectic and I'm easily pleased. Music wise, my tastes are wide ranging thoughI'm not fond of opera or hip-hop. I like to listen to older music, from the eighties back to the forties, any style. I like classic disco, country music from the late 80's to the current decade (even knew how to line dance and two-step at one time) and one of my favorite internet station features top-forty music from the 1950s to the 1980s. As I get older I can appreciate the older standards better, with singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Etta James and so on. I love the styles of newer singers like Michael Bublé. In the past couple of years, I've seen the emergence of gay singers and musicians which I think is really good, there's quite a bit of talent in the gay community. I try to use my web site to help other gay creative types in whatever way I can.

Movies - well, one of my all time favorites has got to be Brokeback Mountain, of course. I love classic older movies if it's well done and directed, ranging from westerns, sci-fi, comedies to mysteries. Speaking of mysteries, I really get into British teledrama mysteries, the British seem to do that genre very well.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another." - D.H. Lawrence