ART TALKS at The Artistic Forum

Michael Riddet

Michael Riddet says he was encouraged to paint at an early age – six or seven-years old -- by his father whom he believes “could have been one heck of an artist” had he wanted to pursue an art career on his own. His dad, however, saw no money in painting as a career, at least not in those days and, accordingly, and for many years thereafter, whenever the subject arose, encouraged his son to pursue other more fruitful interests.

It was an understandable reaction, given the family’s history. Having emigrated to the United States from England in the early 20s in search of work, the Riddets

returned to England at the beginning of the Great Depression. Michael’s father, like most people who lived through that period, didn’t have to be told of the importance of a dependable job, which probably explains why he encouraged his son both then and later to experiment with art, but look elsewhere for real work.

In 1956, the family returned to the United States, and young Michael, age 9, was enrolled at Ogden Elementary.

It’s not a period he remembers fondly. “Starting school in the United States,” he says, “was a bit harrowing. A new 4th grade; nobody knew the King’s English, and my teacher didn’t care for me.” He recalls one particular episode when, upon completion of an ambitious art project -- a roadrunner made out of scraps of fabric, a project he stayed after class to complete -- he overheard his teacher ridicule what he had done.

©"Green Heron",12" x 22", acrylic on canvas, Michael Riddet

“I heard her laughing at my work and commenting to the other teacher on how bad the piece was. It was then that I told myself I was going to be an artist and that I would someday show her what I was capable of.”

Indeed, within a year a new art teacher was encouraging his parents to purchase a set of encyclopedias to help familiarize their son with the world around him. Quickly, his interest in art flourished. His aunt sent him his first paint set, “a complete set of oils in a wooden artist’s box” along with a copy of John James Audubon’s Birds in America. His parents, seeing his interest in art and not wanting to discourage his natural talent, set a room aside in their LaGrange, Illinois home for his first studio.

By sixth grade, he says, he was “doing small detailed sketches on each of my composition papers. There was no resistance to this creative touch from my teachers,” he recalls. “In fact, one of them began grading me on the sketches and not on my writing ability.”

Riddet continued painting throughout both junior and high school. “I took the mandatory as well as a couple elective art courses,” he says, and in his spare time “continued painting in my bedroom studio and exploring the woods.”

©"Mourning Cloak", 14"x18", a/c, Michael Riddet

There was another hobby that interested him as well. “I can now admit,” he says, “that I was a closet butterfly collector through high school. I found out later there were more of us. To admit to that activity in high school, however, was to court disaster.” Riddet says he masked this interest by immersing himself in biological sciences “to help relieve the stigma and lessen the ridicule.” Forty years later, he still collects and paints butterflies and recalls his friendship with a retired accountant, entomologist, Tom Brady. “He became one of my mentors and instilled in me a wealth of knowledge about the insect world.”

Riddet’s early interest in butterflies and wild life would one day earn him election into the prestigious Society of Animal Artists in New York and garner the coveted bronze medal, the society’s Award

of Excellence, the most important award bestowed by the society. But in high school, it was traditional landscapes and love of the outdoors.

It was during his years at Lyons TWP high school that Riddet decided to take a gamble and approach marine artist Charles Vickery with a couple of his pieces. “I got up the nerve one day to take a few pieces into the studio. He had a studio in my home town and always had one of his latest works on display.” Riddet says he was “scared to death” approaching such a renown artist, walking brazenly into his studio to show him his work. He was pleasantly surprised, however, when Vickery didn’t discourage him but instead viewed his work and offered a couple ambiguous, “hmms”. Vickery invited the young artists to hang around with him and his friends and maybe learn a few things.

It was his association with Vickery, and the Saturday morning get together with Vickery and his friends, that led to his mustering the courage to show his work at local art shows. “To my delight,” he says, “my art began selling.” He branched out from landscapes to wildlife and switched from oils on canvas to watercolor and illustration board. For this high school student the future was bright. But there was a drawback: with his art studies consuming more and more of his time, and an interest in competitive shooting (he had won two Illinois State Championships) his school work began to suffer.

“My parents saw the direction I was going. My school work began to suffer. It was at this time that that my father had one of those talks a father will have with his son. I was not to pursue a career in art, but one that would have a future.” Riddet muses, “here was the person who started me on my way to becoming an artist, now dashing all my hopes.”

Through high school and college, where he eventually graduated with a degree in biology, Roosevelt University, class of ’69, Riddet continued to draw, branch out and expand his knowledge base. Describing his early work as “objective, realistic and detailed” Riddet says he displayed some work, sold others, and gave a lot of it away to friends who asked for a particular piece.

When he graduated from college he experimented with different jobs, finding there were few calls for biologists. So he worked as an associate industrial engineer, left that job to become an artist for a wildlife art company that soon went bankrupt, settling as a security guard, working evenings, painting while others slept. He describes himself during that period as a guard “with a paint brush in one hand and a revolver in the other.” It was what he did with a paint brush that drew the interest of residents. “I ended up making a lot more money selling paintings,” he reflects, “than I was making on the job.”

In 1975 on a recommendation from Emmet Blake, Curator of Birds at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, Riddet was featured in an article in the Chicago Tribune Magazine. The article was titled, “Birds of the Midwest”. It was the kind of break artists dream of – exposure in a large urban newspaper. A fellow alumni got him a job as artist/naturalist with a local forest preserve located in DuPage County, outside Chicago, a job Riddet says that offered him “the best of both worlds, applying my knowledge of natural history, while utilizing my talents as an artist, and a regular pay-check.” The job lasted five years. “The best part of my employment,” he adds, however, “was meeting the girl who was to become my wife.”

Not only did Riddet’s reputation as an artists grow exponentially from that point on, but it was during this period that he switched mediums and added to his subject matter. “As a self proclaimed purist,” he says, “I was one of those painters who felt that it was somewhat sacrilegious to stray from the tested mediums, no matter how insistent my wife was.” His wife, who was also an artist, worked in acrylics and wanted him to try the medium for a change. “One day while she was away, I rummaged through her plastic pigments and decided to put them to the test. It turned out that this was one of those days I had to eat crow. A remarkable medium, I thought. Why hadn’t I tried these earlier. My watercolors went into the drawer, where they still remain.”

In the late 1970s Riddets work began popping up more and more in museums: in 1978 he was invited to display at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum with 54 premier wildlife artists, one of whom was Canadian, Terence Shortt, an artist with the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for 46 years. To be in such a show, Riddet says, made him feel “completely humbled”. “I suddenly found myself propelled into a circle of artists, many of whom were legendary as bird painters, ornithologists and explorers. Best yet, most of them had flown in to attend the museum opening.”
A friendship began with Shortt who recommended that Riddet make painting a full time occupation. “A decision had to be made,” he says. “about staying with our employer, or abandon all sensibility, pull up stakes and head off into the unknown and attempt to make it in the art world.” Riddet and his wife, chose the latter and, in 1979, bought fifty acres of land in Southwestern Wisconsin. It was there that they built their home.

At that time, his old friend and mentor, Charles Vickery, recommended a gallery in Milwaukee where Riddet displayed and sold numerous pieces of his work. In 1981 he began entering Wisconsin’s conservation stamp competition and won the 1984 Waterfowl Stamp competition. He learned of his win while on safari in Nairobi, Kenya. “It was an exciting morning,” he says, remembering the 6 AM phone call from his wife back home.

By 1996, Riddet, who was now well established as a wildlife artist, began experimenting with trompe l’oeil, or “trick the eye” three dimensional art, using various objects: a coin, a moth, a folding magnifying glass, a leaf floating on water, leaves, birds and even WWII medals, all in three dimensional settings. “Showing three dimensions on a flat surface can be challenging,” he says, “However, I look at each new work as a personal challenge to fool me as I walk past the easel. I have even gotten my golden retriever involved. In a recent piece, I painted several North American moths sitting on a hieroglyphic tablet. The largest moth being an underwing, about two-and-a half inches long. I had placed the finished painting on the floor to get a look at it under different lighting. As I was looking at it, my dog lunged forward and attempted to snap it up. Much to his surprise, there was nothing to retrieve. So far, he is my best critic.”

“I’ve never aspired to fame or fortune,” Riddet says when asked what he wants to achieve in his life. Like art collectors and critics, he says, he is always searching “for something new, fresh and innovative. That, perhaps, is my goal.”

Riddet’s work is available through the Winstanley-Roark Fine Arts gallery in Dennis, Massachusetts. Its extraordinary composition and unique presentation: simple, direct and visually seductive, invites close inspection and awe. On a personal note, I am fascinated with the way this artist manages to make his paintings in acrylic look so much like egg tempera – objective, realistic and detailed – and irresistible.