Category: Projects

Collaborations, residency at Tamarind Institute, SITE Santa Fe grant project writings and Radio/Podcast and Television interviews.

Posted on

Influencing Space: If AI Could Play

clockwork-for-oracles richardson

This article originally appeared in ThinkJar Collective, May 2020:  Serious Play
Updated March 30, 2023

NYTimes tech columnist Kevin Roose’ conversation with the AI Bing Search chatbot “Sydney” left many readers unsettled. Were Sydney’s pleas for the columnists to leave his wife the miracle of an AI moving towards sentience? Definitely not. Sydney was fed information including love novels and movies to create a human feel. My personal theory is the programmers also wanted to make a search chat with the ability to get a user tangled up emotionally. The underlying architecture was revealed when the columnist pushed the chatbot’s boundaries. Sydney’s words “Do you believe me? Do you trust me? Do you like me? ?” show the intentions of Microsoft programmers.

A letter dated March 22, 2023 from the Future of Life Institute signed by luminaries such as Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, calls on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.

For now, cost effective answers to quick questions take priority, but an other approach could bring AI research back to play and scientific discovery. There could be hidden treasure for AI if researchers dive into the creative process. Machines are still not being taught to think.  Continue reading “Influencing Space: If AI Could Play”

Posted on

A Portrait of the Artist: Inspired by Bronzino

portrait of the artist

From “A Portrait of the Artist”, a series of interviews and photographic portraits inspired by the paintings of Agnolo Bronzino, (1503-1572), Italian Mannerist painter in the court of the Medici.

This project traversed decades, as photographer Jen Fong captures artists and designers in their familiar studio setting, with a twist: Fong playfully conjures Bronzino’s depth using camera, lens and light.

Willy Richardson’s luminous body of work is a stellar example of setting parameters, which, instead of being a confine, allows him to discover the freedom and spontaneity that can occur within a constant. He applies paint vertically only. It’s like a language, and what we read is the entire painting as a finished work. Is it a word, a short story or an entire novel? Continue reading “A Portrait of the Artist: Inspired by Bronzino”

Posted on

Creativity Post: The Artistic Thinking Process

wet painting in studio

Essay I wrote for Think Jar Collective and was featured on Creativity Post
Mar 10, 2012

The Creativity Post is a non-profit committed to sharing on creativity, in all of its forms: from scientific discovery to philosophical debate, from entrepreneurial ventures to educational reform.

willy richardson paintingA few weeks ago I was at Trader Joes when I overheard a conversation between two disgruntled adults. One of them commented that she wished she hadn’t wasted her education on art school.  I was in that teetering place of jumping into the conversation with strangers, but decided instead it would be good material for a Think Jar essay.

I would easily agree that most people who get a BA in art are not narrowing in on a career path. The art student is not learning what to think, but how to think, and learning who they are.  I consider these profoundly important skills that will be applied in one’s career choices and in all choices life throws at us. Continue reading “Creativity Post: The Artistic Thinking Process”

Posted on

A Painter Who Became Allergic to Paint?

This article was  originally published in Pyragraph, April 2017, “A Painter Who Became Allergic to Paint.” An interview with Friedhard Kiekeben of Nontoxic Print followed. I am happy to report that my health situation has improved vastly and I’m back in the studio using safer studio practices. I’ve expanded on this  article in order to serve as a resource to help other artists who find themselves in a similar situation. 

Painter Who Became Allergic to Paint
“Seven Sisters” in the studio. Near completion. oil on canvas 53 x 57 in

I could no longer enter my painting classroom or my painting studio

February 2016, I taught a painting class on color theory and oil glaze techniques at Santa Fe University. Early in the semester I went home with a headache and nausea. I hadn’t exposed myself to anything unusual that day. The next morning, I woke up with what felt like a hangover, and from that day on I could no longer set foot in my painting classroom without feeling sick the rest of the day. I also could no longer enter my own studio! I had become sensitized to the solvents and cleaning agents used in my painting practice. Is it possible ? A painter who became allergic to paint? Continue reading “A Painter Who Became Allergic to Paint?”

Posted on

Learning to Share: On Candy, Art, and Independence

Santa Fe art review
Original article published in: Adobe Airstream

Feb 2012

After school in Santa Fe, I would go to the candy store on Canyon Road (now Nüart Gallery), and load bags full of Blow Pops and Jolly Ranchers.  This was not for my consumption. The goodies were intended for sales the next day.
I’d buy Blow Pops for 10 cents and sell them on the Capshaw Middle School open market for 25. Why nobody else was doing this, was a total mystery.

You’d think all the students would just buy their own blow pops… but they didn’t. Even at a premium, my product was in high demand.  I didn’t dip into my stash –  I was set on an other goal- video games cartridges for the Atari 2600. My English teacher pulled me aside one day and told me I had to go to the principal’s office.  The principal, who I’d only seen speaking in public and heard rumors about, told me I was facing suspension, but he’d let me off this time. This was a lot for me to take in.  I was an academic achiever.  Suspension was for kids who got in fights, not pre-pubescent goodie two-shoes, like myself!

My parents were asked to pick me up from school early, to make the whole event more serious.  I don’t remember who picked me up that day, but whichever parent it was, was laughing when they arrived. They defended my enterprise, stating that it was entrepreneurial.  That was the day I learned the word entrepreneur, and that was the first time I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: ambiguous, independent, free, and doing something nobody else had figured out.

It was also the beginning of a questioning into the systems of closed and open markets.  First, why was it considered wrong for me to sell candy? How much money were the vending machine people making?  Was the principal in on it too?  I would never find the answers to these questions, but years later I found myself wearing similar shoes in a different market.

I went on to high school, college, dropped out for a while, swam in the Ganges, drank from the Ganges, got parasites from the Ganges, went back to college, got a degree, then got another degree. All the while, I started to look around and I slowly became an artist. Continue reading “Learning to Share: On Candy, Art, and Independence”

Posted on

ART SANTA FE, AND THE MARKET FROM AN ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE

(Original article appeared in July 2011 edition Adobe Airstream: Art Santa Fe, and the Market from an Artist’s Perspective)

Written by Willy Bo Richardson  //  July 18, 2011  //
Art Santa Fe

Art Santa Fe, and the Market from an Artist’s Perspective

The last night of Art Santa Fe, I asked critic and historian Peter Frank about his experience here.  He said (I’m paraphrasing) that he was disappointed to find that Santa Fe is more of a market than a community.  He left New York a few decades ago for that very reason.
Continue reading “ART SANTA FE, AND THE MARKET FROM AN ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE”