Elisa Rolle Interview

I was recently interviewed by Elisa Rolle and she posted the article on her website today: PAUL RICHMOND: INS & OUTS.

Here's an excerpt:

Elisa: Can you tell us something more about you and how you decided to become an artist?

Paul: As a child, when I wasn’t prancing around the house wearing my blanket as a skirt and pretending to be a Disney princess, I was at the dining room table drawing. My mom brought home big stacks of scrap computer paper from work and claims I turned out about two hundred drawings a day. I’m really grateful that my parents encouraged my artistic ambitions (if not my Disney princess ones). They even sought the mentorship of a local artist, Linda Regula, who took me under her wing when I was only three years old. Besides being a wonderful teacher, Linda also became my first real-live diva role model! She encouraged creative expression and storytelling on canvas, which were great outlets during the rocky times I encountered as a blossoming gay boy in a repressed, conservative environment. I always took great pride in my art and in my identity as an artist. This helped balance some of the shame I was learning to feel about myself otherwise. Looking back, I believe it was during this challenging period of my young adult life that I made the decision to pursue art as a career.