FROM GRIDIRON TO GALLERY

It could seem to some that 2007 was just a few years ago. It was a good year in Wimberley. The Texan football team had just finished a deep run into the playoffs. They, along with #16 Richard Samuel, were 12-2 and district champs falling to Hondo in the State Quarterfinals. Samuel also played wide receiver and defensive back on the state championship team the season before. He was a natural athlete, but he was also more than an athlete. That was the year that he would learn that his life’s passion may not end up being on the gridiron, however, it took a while for that idea to come full circle.

“He played mainly on offense,” Wimberley High School Football Coach Dane Saucier, who was also a coach when Samuel played for the Texans, said. “He wasn’t a very big guy, but he had a knack for being elusive. He was one of those ‘You couldn’t catch him in a phone booth’ type of guys. His competitive ness was never questioned, and he was one of our leaders.”

There were also glimpses of what was to come.

“Back in school he would always be drawing on stuff,” Saucier said. “On the back of his books, or drawing decals or pictures of himself scoring touchdowns. You could tell he had a knack for drawing. There are lots of kids that do that type of stuff and nothing ever comes from it. But he’s that type of person that if he puts his mind to it, he goes 100 percent, so I’m not surprised.”

Leap forward to 2021. Wimberley is still close to his heart, only now his focus has shifted from the field to the palette.

Located on East 6th street in Austin, his gallery is full of fun, whimsical paintings as well as some very serious art.

“I left Wimberley and went to Southeast Missouri, to play football. My uncle was a receiver coach there and recruited me,” Samuel said. “... But then he left for a coordinator’s job (at another school). I had already committed. After he was gone, I just came back to Texas, transferred to Texas Southern and graduated from there.”

He had tryouts with NFL teams but did poorly at the workouts. He hadn’t been professionally trained specifically for the tasks required.

“But it all worked out,” he said. “I ended up getting the opportunity to play for Team USA, right after Texas Southern.” He played another year for them. In the next year he accepted a contract to play American football in Europe.

“I played in Serbia for two years and then Germany for three years. My first year in Germany, 2016 I believe, I had picked up my watercolor paints. I started painting again while I was over there.” His long dormant artistic streak wanted to be expressed. It was back in high school when he initially learned about watercolors.

“The funny thing is, my senior year at Wimberley Lian Quan Zhen, he’s a famous watercolor teacher. He did a workshop in Wimberley at the Community Center.

“I came home one day, my mom… she caught wind of it. She went up to the high school, I didn’t even know, and she asked them if they could let me out of school for a week to take this course,” he continued.

“It was already my senior year. I’d already had all the stuff done, and it was track season, so I was gone anyway. They let me go for a week, and I had my introduction to watercolor there and fell in love with it. But I literally did not pick up another watercolor, because football just took over my life.”

Playing American football in Germany, he became somewhat of a star. “I was in the newspaper all the time with catches for touchdowns. They’re interviewing me and asking, ‘Hey, what do you do for fun?’ Well, I like to paint… They organized a ‘vernissage’ is what they call it in Germany. It means a solo gallery. My work was in the gallery for two and a half months. (They said) if you paint as many pages as you can, you can have a solo gallery at the end of the season. So I did it. And I ended up being the best seller that has ever been at that gallery.”

He played football overseas for two more years and then came home to Texas working as property manager. He started selling his art anywhere he could.

“I vended everywhere. Any pop up gallery I could find online. I went everywhere. It was at some crazy places. At some places, you go for six hours and you make $20. And some places you go for two hours and you make $500. You never know. But I met a lot of people, and that’s how you network.”

He learned different avenues to market his products online. He knew he could not make a living just selling watercolors.

“It’s hard to sell that many paintings all the time... So what else? I design clothing. I also have a direct to garment printer and everything. So I have my own t-shirt company as well. I can print whatever people want on t-shirts. Online business. Yes. I learned how to do all the digital artwork. I have a pretty extensive portfolio of companies now that I have as clients.”

He also teaches a variety of art classes including framing. Living in a vibrant section like East Austin is where he wants to be. “East Austin, in particular, is full of art. There are probably three different galleries right next to me. But they’re strictly art galleries. They’re not studios. They don’t teach.”

He envisions his studio as different. “It’s an event venue. It’s a gallery. It’s a studio. It’s a T-shirt business. It’s a lot of different things.” His plans for the future are big. They’re full of dreams waiting to be fulfilled.

“I’m always dreaming about something bigger. So yes, it’s a good thing. (But) it takes some people to put me back down to earth. I am always dreaming of something.”

Dreaming isn’t new for Samuel. For that matter, turning his dreams into reality isn’t really new for him either.

“Richard was a talented guy,” Coach Dane Saucier said. “Whatever he set his mind to, he was going to be good at it, because he was going to work at it. He said he was going to play college football. He put his mind to it, and he did it. He got the opportunity to play at the next level in Europe. He said he wanted to do it. He put his mind to it, and he did it. I think this gallery will be the same way.”

RichesArt Gallery is located at 2511 East 6th Street Unit A in Austin. His art can be found online at richesart.com.