RON REIHEL ON THE COVER

*Front and Back Cover of the FUTURO edition*

meet the man who made the art featured on the covers of FUTURO, our latest edition.

RON REIHEL IS Photographed by james minchin AT HOME IN laurel canyon and IN HIS STUDIO IN inglewood.

Everyone has a story, but Ron Reihel has more than most. He is a true original, a vibrant human but rather than us tell you about him, we asked him six questions in which he generously reveals himself. Meet the original wizard of light and form.

Periphery, (Night), 2005 by Ron Reihel featured on the front and back cover of FUTURO.

Tell us how you became an artist ?

I became an artist accidentally. I grew up as a two-sport athlete from 6 years old, playing baseball and soccer in South Miami until I was 20. My father was a star in baseball, football, and gymnastics. Several MLB teams drafted him. He went to The United States Naval Academy and Stanford for his master's in science and engineering. My father wanted me to be just like him; that's how it worked in my family. He was a perfectionist. I had a lot of pressure to be like him. He was in the NASA space program as an astronaut, and he was a fighter pilot and a test Pilot at Edward's Air Force base in the Mohave desert, where I was born. He flew the SR-71 Blackbird… so it was not easy pleasing Col. Reihel. But the man taught me so much, which made it possible to have no fear in anything I did. He was incredibly supportive of everything I did once he realized I was not going into the military in any capacity (I told him I had no interest in killing anything).

Portrait of Ron’s parents ©James Minchin III

The next significant influence was my sister Jenny, who told me I needed to go to fashion design school because I was always into that stuff since I was little. Growing up I had Guess and Karl Lagerfeld models all over the walls of my bedroom. I thought my sister was a genius for this advice because I realized what a great profession being a fashion designer would be. Make clothes and date supermodels! So, I went to a small trade school in Westwood, CA, which is now defunct—the American College for the Applied Arts. I learned how to sew, drape, and make patterns. I won 3rd place in the Senior Fashion Show. This gave me my first taste of creativity. I was a natural right from the start. This was a bit shocking, as I never did art as a child, besides drawing boats and planes.

Portraits of childhood ©James Minchin III

I met a mentor, Samir Motady, in my knitwear class who saw something in me. He suggested I go to F.I.T. In New York or Otis Parsons in L.A. I ended up attending Otis Parsons, and in the foundation year, Dan Nusanov, Samir's husband, who was a designer for Catch It, a surf company, said if I studied fine art, I would learn how to see and be a better designer. So I did. My painting teachers were Constance Mallinson and Scott Greiger. Sarah Perry was my sculpture teacher. Otis was amazing!

The first canvas I stretched and the batch of paint I mixed up was super thick. I was sculpting an oil painting from the start. It hit me like a ton of bricks. This is what I was born to do. I never looked back since that day! I abandoned fashion as a career but customized my own clothes, which I still do to this day. The fashion background eventually found its way into my work when I started sculpting in rawhide. As a young student artist, I copied and emulated all my heroes. William de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Francis Bacon, Agnes Martin, and Eva Hess, to name a few. I quit partying and got serious about learning to make art on the level of my heroes. The rest is history, and here I am, over 30 years later, still doing the same thing. My toolbox and knowledge are just a little bigger now. I couldn't be more grateful to my sister, mother, and father for helping me become myself, an artist searching for something I've never seen or felt before. Yes, I'm still after the Holy Grail. All you have to do is show up every day, and you might just find what you're looking for.

Ron Reihel at home in Laurel Canyon © James Minchin III

Can you talk about your process, a day in your life?

My process has been the same since I began. There are two parts to my process. Firstly, I see the finished piece in my head. The story or the concept is essential because the meaning is an avenue for me to explore all the possibilities of the physical end result. Expanding on the beginning thought becomes an obsession as I try to find variations of the original concept.

Ron at work in his studio ©James Minchin III

Secondly, I experiment a lot. Once you’ve been there, you can always go back to that place, so I always allow for freedom from thinking. Experimentation leads to mistakes, undoubtedly leading to things I could have never seen coming while thinking. Jumping into the fire is alive and well in my process. Nobody changed a damn thing playing it safe. I firmly believe that if you look at a piece of art long enough, it will tell you what it means, regardless of some spiel attached to it.

What excites you about the future?

The future, well, I believe I see it before it happens. A.I. can’t do that because it’s based on past information. But thinking new thoughts and paradoxes and not conceding what you’re being fed will not win you over any friends because people just love gravitating towards others’ opinions. Being ahead of your time is the worst thing you can do for an art career. Look at all the artists who were original thinkers. Nobody liked their work in the beginning; they all died poor and in shame. It does prove growth is incredibly uncomfortable. I’m a materials guy, so the present and the future are ripe with new formulations for the things that skeptics say won’t work.

I embrace the idea of a robot assistant doing it exactly as I have requested. It’s right around the corner folks. I predict the most relevant art in the future will have nothing to do with the past. Art has always had one foot in the past only because people can’t come up with new shit; it’s too risky. New shit scares people. I predict the person with the most outrageous imagination, interpretation, and taste will unlock the future in a way not even the skeptics can reject. No rules breeds the unforgettable! History moves forward only by being brave and courageous, and those who play it safe delay the future. It has nothing to do with money, it’s the concept.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? And the worst?

The best advice came recently from a wonderful mentor and peer, the painter John Millea. He reminded me to be my authentic self, pure Ronnie, with no pretensions. The worst advice was from a famous artist who will remain nameless, whom I worked for, who saw my light work and said, “Beware of gimmicks.” It hurt for about 10 seconds because I knew he didn’t mean to hurt my feelings or derail me. He was relating something that happened to him early on. No one can step on your process of growth and vision. Hopefully, you meet some unconditional nurturing cats along the way that remind you to be yourself because no one can ever tell you you’re doing it wrong.