Richard Crawford
Born in Lafayette, Indiana, in June of 1950, Rich grew up with three brothers and one sister. The family later moved to California where Rich was raised and now resides with his wife Kelley and son Jeff. Beginning his art career as a metal sculptor, Rich's paper sculpting became a natural extension of his sculpting talent. The majority of his work is a corroboration between himself and other artists. This has allowed variety and freshness to a virtually unlimited subject matter. Taken from its roots dating back to the 17th century, Richard Crawford has furthered his 27 years as an artist sculpting flat images into a three dimensional medium. Originally this form of sculpture was done by molding figures around wadded paper then placing them in front of a picture to give the illusion of dimension. This had a toy like quality and is quite different than the meticulous detail that Richard creates with his adaptation. Each sculpture uses several copies of the same image, and by cutting, contouring, and layering, achieves its third dimension. The final step is quite unique. The sculpture is treated, allowed to dry, then encased in a polymer resin. This gives a ceramic or glass like finish to the sculpture.
