Anthony Ricciardi - Coming A Celebrity Artist and Following Your Heart

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What's going on, Anthony?

How's it going?

Doing well, man. So for context, I've been using call in for over a month now. Just doing cool interviews. It's a super cool podcast app. As you'll see, people will be popping in here, but we'll just treat it like a conversation, a normal podcast. Dive into some Q and A, have a conversation, and then towards the end we'll invite some cool people up if they are interested. So I'm excited, man. Thanks for taking the time today.

I love it. Thank you. Appreciate this.

Of course, man. So, I mean, first off, we just needed to catch up, I would say. As of a week and a half ago, we did a super cool art collaboration together at the launch of Media Kits, my new company. And we dive into it, man, I'd love for you to tell not only my buddy Brandon, who is in here listening, but the people that are listening to the podcast. How long have you been an artist? What got you into it? So that they have some full context.

Here for sure, for sure. And that was an amazing event. I can't wait to get into that. So for me, I'm from Toronto, Canada. I grew up always having a passion for arts. But, you know, growing up, art didn't really, you know, no one really told me you could be an artist. Like this is an actual viable career. So growing up I had so many other passions and I thought, you know what? I love baseball. I was an athlete growing up and I said, you know, one of my biggest dreams was to play college baseball. So I ended up receiving a Division 1 athletic scholarship to play baseball at Alabama State. And while there before I, you know, went down selves to go to school, I sort of thought to myself like, you know, maybe I should pursue this art thing. But again, I was, you know, sort of told, you know, get a, you know, I don't want to say get a real job, but you know, get something that you can have structure and do Artists do art for fun. So I ended up studying finance, which is, you know, very far from the art world, finance and baseball. So it was a, it was a definitely an interesting path to get here. But what ended up happening is after I graduated I was, you know, down in Alabama State for about four and a half years. Graduate come back, I started working for a real estate investment fund. And during that time, for almost just over four years, every night and weekend I started to paint. And I started it with just a couple days a week and then it ran five days a week, then it was seven days a week, then it was before work and after work and throughout the middle of the night and then I would go to work and it sort of started to take over. And you know, it started as a passion, but as I, you know, utilizing social media, utilizing just being able to just, you know, the grind and the hustle of just reaching out to people and making things work, that's sort of what I did. I took a very entrepreneurial approach to my art career and sort of always represented myself. I've never been represented by a third party gallery or manager or agent of any type. It's always just been me. And that's sort of how I did it. I started reaching out and small opportunities started to come through. And then I finally said, well, if I'm going to do something crazy like quit my job and finance, become an artist, I might as well do while we're young. And almost five years ago now, I left my four time career in finance and pursued art. Yeah, man.

Wow, that is so cool, man. And you do that so well. I know when you first reached out, I think it was like March earlier this year, you just reached out, just showing love. You were saying, hey, let's do a cool custom painting. Let's, you know, let's do something. And not only was that very generous, but it started the conversation that led to us actually collaborating. You know, like I said at the beginning, the episode at my recent launch event and it's just so cool to not only see what's possible with social media, but I'm sure as you've seen with your success, that generosity of reaching out has led you to not only do custom pieces for some of the biggest celebrities in the world, but it just opens up door and I'm a huge component of that when it comes to being a value, reaching out to people sliding in the DMs. And I think our relationship on how it's progressed has been a very clear answer to what can come from that, you know.

Exactly. You know, it's just I always, I always believe that you never know what can come from anything. So reaching out and it's all a numbers game at the end of the day. Like, I look at it the same way with my artwork. Like, the more pieces of art I create, the better chance I have of creating something that's beautiful. And I look at it the same way as sliding in a dm. The same way as emailing a company is that if I feel passionate, well, first and foremost, you have to feel passionate about it like I do. You provide an extreme amount of value and other people in your space and people that I look up to, I go, you know, I'm, I'm. I love what they do. I want to be a part of it in some way, shape or form. And if I can have an art piece that can work with it, that's awesome. And, you know, finding something that you're passionate about and then reaching out is as, you know, as often as possible. To see how you can make something work is, you know, I believe in that wholeheartedly, for sure.

So you said. So you were a NCAA athlete in college, is that right?

Yep, yep.

So how did you get into that? You played baseball?

How I played baseball growing up, you know, it was, you know, being from being from Canada, there wasn't many people that were, especially at that time, you know, going down south to play, you know, collegiate sports. It always, always had been a passion of mine. Of course, you know, the major leagues or, you know, professional sports was the actual end goal. But you know, reality with the current talent levels and everything that I had to work with, I'm like, you know what? College is definitely a good start. And so I to be told, I was telling you a very quick story is how I got to school was I emailed every single Division 1 school. There's 306 Division 1 schools. I had to take a very, I took a very like tactical hand, you know, hand to hand combat approach to it. And I was like, I'm gonna email every single school. And then I got like three or four emails back and three of them said, hey, never email us again. And two of them were just like out of office replies. And then I just did it the next week. I emailed them all. But the kicker to it was, and I want to make sure everyone takes this note, is that I didn't just send a mass email. I actually went into every single school. It took me about two months to do this. While I was in grade 11, just the summer of 11th grade. And I took about two months to actually look into every single division one school and say, what would I actually like about this school? And maybe some schools there was less and some schools there was more. But I would find one key point. And when I was emailing their coach or emailing their admission counselor, I would say, this is why I want to come to XYZ school. This is why I want to come to your school because of these three points. And it would be very, very specific. So after about three rounds of these emails, about eight schools responded, which was actually a great number. Eight out of 300 is actually super. And I sent video along, I sent pictures, I sent all my stats, I sent my grades and all that type of fun stuff. And finally, with these eight schools, my dad and I, we, we travel. We went to California, there's a couple schools out in Cali, and we went to Florida and Georgia. And while I was at a school in Georgia, the coach from Alabama State was there, and he's like, I recognize you from somewhere. I'm like, I know I've emailed you a bunch of times. And he's like, oh, okay, cool. And he. One of the emails, which is perfectly fine. And we started talking, and it was super late in my. This is now 12th grade. So this is, this is about a year from, you know, by the time I. For the first emails to actually getting responses was about a year later. And I, I said, yeah, no, of course. Like, I would, I would love to chat. And literally the next month, I was attending Alabama State University. So I, I took a sliding in the DM's approach. Yeah. Going back eight years now. Right. Like this is. Or maybe longer ten years ago. So I took that. I really, really believe in that approach, you know, with everything.

Yeah, no, I love that.

Yeah.

I want to talk about some of the art collaborations that you've done. I know I put them in the bio here and Colin, but you've mentioned anyone from Demi Lovato to Bad Bunny to Shaquille o' Neal to James Harden, and the list just goes on and on. How have you landed these celebrity paintings that you've done for these people? And who was the first celebrity that you collaborated with?

That's a good question. So I, you know, they've come from a couple different venues. The first one's been a lot of management, artist management, or, you know, some of these influencer companies that work with these influencers or celebrities. They would be. They're purchasing it on their behalf or having it gifted to them on their behalf. As from a management standpoint, that's a lot of the athletes, they're like PR teams or agents would reach out to me to do a custom piece for them. That was the main one with the athletic side. A couple other ones were through charity events like the Shaquille o' Neal for example. We did a charity event together in Vancouver, British Columbia and at the end of it he ended up liking one of the paintings that I was. I donated to this charities and he wanted one. He ended up. So we ended up doing a piece for him and ended up going. He sold his house a couple years later. It was actually the main. He put that piece up as like the main focus when he walked into his house which was super, super cool. So that charity. Different charity events have been. Have been crucial. And then initially I had a clothing line called Dust of Gods that we sold pretty much exclusively in LA at H. Lorenzo on Sunset. And you know, through that one of the first, you know, one of the first jackets we ever sold was to Demi Lovato. And then from there we ended up having conversations and then we sold jackets to, you know, Justin Bieber's and Amigos and like so many other, you know, really cool people from those. And that's. That was initial entry and then lastly was just like we just finished talking about is reaching out. You know, if somebody I. They provide value to my life and I, you know, I like them. It's. It's cool. And Post Malone was probably the first big artist that or, you know, celebrity that I ever did anything with. It was almost. It was when he. It was the week he dropped Congratulations is probably going back five years. I have an old picture like he has long hair and braids and doesn't look anything like he looks today. It's really crazy. And we were at the MMVA's which is a music award show here in Toronto and he was backstage and I was backstage with Cardinal Fischal. I had just done a piece for him and Post Malone. We're in the bathroom. This is a funny story, but we're in the bathroom. He grabs my shoulder and I have no idea. I knew Postmomo was obviously he didn't know who I was, but he's like, I really like your jacket, man. Where did you get this? And we're both in the bathroom. It's the funniest thing. And I'm like, oh, I made it. So then we had this three minute walk back to the backstage which felt like 40 minutes and the whole time we're talking and then we use like super cool. Ended up. I ended up giving him a jacket while we were there and he ended up wearing it on stage that night for the concert, which was crazy. Yeah. He calls me two days later, he's like, I'm coming back to Toronto, so like, I want you to come out to the show. And he brought me out on stage and everything. It was crazy. It was really, really fun. So, yeah, it's just by happening, we just ran each other, ran into each other in the bathroom. So it was like super crazy. But yeah, that's. There's been a lot of different things, but as you know, it's just, you know, I think consistency, Consistency, like just, you know, always reaching out, always doing more, always trying to push the envelope and that's, that's what really what's got it there.

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you for sharing that story. It's so epic.

Yeah.

When you talk about the phrase, and I know we titled it on this call, following your heart, I know just the symbol that you tend to put in all your paintings is this heart logo. And I'd love for you to talk about what that represents and again, what you mean when you hear following your heart.

Yeah, yeah. For me, you know, all the years that I painted when I was just by myself, when I had no true vision that I can actually become an artist, it was a message that I told myself, you know, we grow up in the cliche thing to say is follow you hard. You know, everything will work out. But that's not actually the reality. There's a twofold to it. It's not only you have to follow your heart, but you actually have to work for what your heart wants. And that's like the true. You know, that was. What I truly believe in is that if I tell myself that I want to become an artist, and that's what I did many years ago, I said, okay, now follow your heart. Like, now give it everything you got. Like take up the whole level of your heart, your brain, your physical, your mental to execute on that vision. So for me, it's like this multi layered thing where. And that's why it started to come out in my paintings is I never painted hearts up until a few years ago. And for years I painted so many different things. Abstracts, pop culture, all these different layers that eventually end up becoming my art. But I started painting hearts on the wall of my studio and just saying, hey, follow your heart, good things will come. Follow your heart, good things will Come. And slowly, they started making their way onto their canvas. And it became a signature for me as I traveled around the world and did different shows. Someone can recognize, of course, I didn't create the shape of a heart, but someone can recognize the shape of my heart, right? And they can say, oh, I know that that's Anthony Ricciardi. And then from there, from there, it's taken a life of its own and, you know, and allowed to it. But I mean, the. The overall concept and ethos of it is when you follow your heart, incredible things can happen. And I mean, you know, you're. You're living proof of that. And in so many of our friends and. And people that we know, especially through different. So many different industries, are living proof of that. Like, do something you love consistently, and incredible things do happen. I really believe that 100%.

I love that so much. And just speaking on your craft, man, I know a week and a half ago, when you were at the event that I hosted, you were doing a live painting. And just seeing, even talking to you before the event, like, seeing how you operate and how fluid it is and to see how you bring your creative mind to the table is so cool.

Thank you.

I think one of the coolest things that I want to point out is just like, when I and everyone was at this event and I see you doing this live painting, you're. You're telling, you know, you're asking me, hey, like, what kind of words you want to put on there? And then you, you know, seeing it come together at the end. Now it's sitting here at my home, just seeing how it all came together with the words, with the. With the heart, with the logo, with how you do it. It's such a creative, not only approach to it, but where do you find that creativity when you paint? I know a lot of people always ask, like, hey, are you born with creativity? Are you naturally creative? What's your answer to that question?

I think for me, truly, it's been repetition. I think that, like, for. It's. Finding the comfort level to execute a painting has just taken thousands of paintings. You know, my. If you look. If you rewind and we go back eight, 10 years and you look at my. My original paintings, they look very different than today. But because I. The storyline of my art has been layer after layer after layer. And it's one of the reasons that when we first spoke, it was like, I wouldn't be able to create a painting from the white canvas to the completed canvas in that, during that event, So I had started at about 50% because of all the layers and depth that I work into my painting. And for me, the creative process is that it continues to change and evolve, even though we knew relatively where it was going to be laid out. I know I sent over a sketch, and the sketch obviously looks a little different than the final painting because it was just more for layout perspective. But the way I work is that I have a vision in mind of what I would love the painting to look like at the end. And then I just try to execute that through so many different layers. And sometimes there's flashes that happen that I don't mean, and that sometimes it works out really well, sometimes it doesn't. But that's the beauty of the type of art that I do that has this very abstract undertone, but also very visual front layer. So for me, it's just been, you know, the quote of, are people born of creativity or not? I just think that people aren't tapping into it because they're scared to. You know, so many people that I know are incredible creatives in their business field. The way that they problem solve in finance, the way that they problem solve it, whatever they do, is absolutely abstract and incredible thinking. They're just not translating into the creative that we think. When you see a canvas, it's a different type of creativity. So I really believe that everyone has the creative bone and the creative ability. They're just not trying because they're scared of what the final thing is. I think the last point on that, the last point on is that I've realized over time is that art is so subjective. So somebody can look at one of my paintings and say, oh, my God, it's the most beautiful thing ever. And then the next guy can come and say, oh, I don't like that at all. Right? So when you get over that point is like, wow, okay, let's. Let's just do what I love. And that's.

Yeah, I love that. And I think so many people can take that in their own way. It's like, even when I. If I think about a podcast, right, I could be interviewing someone and think it's the most incredible story, but someone could say, oh, that's boring. I don't care. Right? So it's like the act of creation and creativity is the most valuable part because that's what allows you to fully express yourself. And again, it's however people tend to receive it is what they get to choose. So outside of that, I would say, what do you enjoy most about Art, is it the live painting? Is it the, like the final picture? And seeing the way that a client responds to it, like, what part of the process do you love the most?

You know, because I've done everything from small scale home installations to entire buildings and murals and collaborations. I've had a good breath of seeing the reactions of people from so many different levels. And I think that the best, you know, for me, the most incredible joy is when I install a painting at a client's house, at someone's house or in an office, and three months later they message me and say, you know, every morning I get to wake up and look at this piece. So every day I get into the office, I get to see this piece. And it brings a smile to my face because I'm always finding something new. I'm finding a new splash, I'm finding a new. A new squiggle, you know, something. And, and that to me is, you know, there's no, there's no greater joy when it comes to art with that, is that seeing the timelessness of a piece and how it can really change the mood of an individual walking by. And that's, that's why a lot of my art is. I mean, I would say 98% of my art is uplifting, motivational, and inspiring because I know the power it has. Like, it has. It had on me my whole life, right? Like, I was inspired by art my whole life. And every time I see a painting that I love, I was like, oh, my God, that just brightened my day. And that's, that's what I want to do with my art. So I think that's the number one thing for me for sure is just, you know, having that, that effect on people.

Love that. Love that. Have you gotten into NFTs at all?

Yeah, the NFT space is super interesting. It's. It's so funny. I had a really close friend that's very big in the crypto world, and about a year and a half ago now, he reaches out to me, he goes, you got to do this thing. NFTs. And I was, I thought he was an alien. I'm like, what are you talking about, man? You're talking about digital pictures that do this, that and the other. And it was like a really weird, obscure concept. But at the time we did it, and this is when Ethereum was quite low at the time, actually going back almost two years. And we put out a series of them and we saw some early on success. Ethereum ends up taking on this huge uptick which Sort of priced me out of the NFT market, which is a very interesting thing to do because all of a sudden my stuff is worth, you know, 40 times than it when it was 30 times it was worth when I first put it on. Funny. Yeah, but so the way I looked at it and I was like, you know what? Because I don't personally do digital art, like all the stuff I do is by hand and I have a couple, you know, I have two people on my team now that I've hired on that can do that type of stuff. It can help with this type of stuff. But the thing for me is like I always, I didn't feel like it was a. The art that I was doing. I was just transferring paintings that I had into digital and it wasn't like this organic feel because I saw so many incredible digital artists making. When the NFT really started taking off all the whole market, I started seeing all the stuff that real digital artists were doing and I felt like I was doing it, a service to it. So I sort of pulled back a bit and I'm waiting, you know, I'm doing a couple different collaborations and unfortunately won't be able to say the celebrities names, but there's a couple, couple celebrities and a couple athletes that I'm doing projects for. Hopefully they'll roll out very shortly. And the concept is that I'm collaborating with them to create a series of NFTs that they sell. We sell and do it all together. Because I think that's going to be my best approach. I think I'm strong on the creative side of things, but the execution of the crypto world is not my strength. So I want to just partner with the right people and take it that way. That's where I'm looking at it as of right now. I like the space. It's cool. It's interesting. It really is. Really is an interesting world. So as it continues to rise, I'm sure I'll play a bigger part in it for sure.

100 I think, I mean, just art overall. I love the whole NFT space and I think it's not only just from his art angle, but the digital ownership where if you sold a piece or the idea right here, it's that media kids painting that we did, like attaching an NFT to it. Whereas if I ever was to, you know, let's say it was in our office or it got one day it ended up somewhere else. It's to transfer the NFT so that you can see the authenticity from you.

Such Incredible.

Transferred to me, then transferred to the next person in any piece of art. And I love that concept and love the whole, you know, like, bigger picture. It's so important. It's so important when you think about the authenticity process.

Yeah. You know, historical art, we see it so often in paintings, you know, from hundreds of years ago that we don't know the validity of them. Like, there's just, there was just. There was just a Van Gogh painting that came out about a year ago, sold for I don't know what, 250, 300 million. They didn't even know if he painted it. There was no, there was no, there was no way to actually properly say yes, he actually painted this, which is crazy. And sorry, it was a Rembrandt, I apologize, not Van Gogh. And I was like, you know, NFTs will solve this. And that's so. I'm really, you know, happy to see how that technology is coming into play because it is a big thing, especially when they go into the auction market and when the, you know, price points of paintings are in the millions. We want to make sure that the artists actually did it. So it's, it's key. Yeah. 100%.

Totally. How often are you doing in person activations? Because I know, correct me if I'm wrong, you've done some cool ones with, at stadiums and at different NBA games, Am I right?

Yeah, yeah, I did. I did one. Well, just, I mean, pre Covid, we were probably doing a pretty big event almost every month, maybe a couple times a month. Yeah, I did one with the Lakers. Super fun. We painted live up in the wish.com booth. It was through a company called Viral Nation. They do incredible things with influencers around the world. And they had hired me out to go to the Laker game and paint live there with Wish. It was, it was awesome. And I've done a bunch of different things like at Disney Adidas. Like my first collaborations with Adidas were for a bunch of their events. I actually was painting live at like all their Toronto events. So like when they would have a big release or a new shoe release, I was doing like a uninspired painting by. And we would paint at the release and we have a, a couple different projects like that. So it, you know, pre Covid, obviously the world was a little bit different and you know, more but. But now, yeah, it's been great to see like the things are starting to come back open and, you know, starting to book, you know, more and more live events which. And the. What I've Seen. Sorry, did my phone cut out there?

Yeah, no worries. It's got.

You know, I. The live event, so fun because people, when it started, the night, they'll see a painting and it, you know, doesn't like. And I remember at your event last week, as the night went on, people would walk by and like, hey, whoa, this changed a lot. That's so cool. And like, they can see a painting come to life, right? And like, they don't have. They don't know what it's going to be at the end. And so it's like, really fun to see how it sort of comes full circle. And that's, that's why I love, I love the live painting aspect.

Love that. What's your advice to artists that are looking to build a social following, Start selling pieces? Because I think, you know, nowadays it's maybe, you know, maybe it's not this, but a lot of artists, they have aspirations, they have goals, but they might not know how to get their art out there. They might think it's too competitive. Like, how do you, how do you build a career as an artist? Like, what if you were to go back and do it all over again? What would you do from a social media angle when it comes to getting your first sales and commissions? And. Yeah, I mean, what's your advice there?

Yeah, you know, I've been fortunate. Although I didn't go to art school, I think business school had a lot to help with this. But I've been fortunate enough to go back and I've spoke at, you know, a couple of the top art schools here in Toronto, and I get to, you know, I get to mentor a lot of art students. And I think the biggest key is, is what we mentioned early on is to understand that you're not going to make everyone happy as an artist. And that's not the point. It's to do, is to do, actually do what you love. So by doing a lot, there's, there's two folds to this. We'll talk about the art side and then the business side, the art side is you have to create a lot of pieces. You know, it's. It's easy to say, I remember someone on stage at your event that I'm not sure if it was Dan Fleishman or someone else. They mentioned this really cool thing. It says going viral has an aspect of luck into it, but if you want, just make yourself more lucky by doing more things, posting more. And I thought that was an incredible concept because I look at it the same way with art there's hundreds of paintings that I've done and sure sold hundreds as well, but there's a lot that they go unsold. There's a lot that I painted over because I didn't like it at the end. There's a lot that after two years of no one ever showing interest in something, I've done something else with it. And I think that my main thing on the art side of thing is for every artist, just, just do it a lot. And when I say art, I really mean, I mean music, I mean acting. You know, in the podcast world it's your, your, you become a better interviewer after hundreds and hundreds of podcasts. Right. It's just, it's by doing repetition. And I think that goes for absolutely anything on the business side of it in terms of the sales aspects. It's, it has to be organic. And I think that the main problem that I've seen with galleries and it's, it's why to date I have never been in a third party galleries, that there's this inorganic aspect of art where, you know, I sell paintings between the 15 to $25,000 range. If I go into the gallery, the gallery will be like, oh, we can easily sell this for 30 because you know, they take 50%, which is perfectly fine. They have great value. They do have value, but there's this artificial increase inflation into my paintings. And that's what happens with a lot of young artists. They don't know what their actual value is. So for me, I've always said just start putting things out in the world. Like the first 50, 60 paintings I ever sold, I was just trying to pay for the next canvas. So whatever that canvas cost me, I was just trying to get to the next canvas so I can keep growing. And that allowed over all these years, allowed the price to organically rise. So, you know, we're at 500, then we're at 1500. Oh, everything selling out okay, now we're at 2500. And to get those sales, it's the same reach out concept that we mentioned, we spoke about early on here. It's just DMing. It's not only DMing, it's, it's DMing and putting yourself out in the world for people to see. There's giving yourself a chance to be purchased, right? Totally to give yourself a chance. So, and then price points just, you know, they continue to rise as, as, as you continue to do more.

Totally. When did you start going hard on social media? Because I know obviously you have a big presence On Instagram you have an incredible brand, your content on points. When was your sort of social media beginning as an artist?

Yeah, I think I always, I always, I didn't know how to approach social media early on, but I think about 5 years ago I opened up my first large scale gallery which was here in Toronto is at Yorkdale Mall which is one of the top luxury malls in Canada. And when I did that I had, you know, I was looking into how to get PR and everything and I didn't really have a big social media. I mean I still, you know, don't have a massive one. But in the art community it's, you know, there's not many artists with like massive things. It's more about focus on the art. So for me it was always how can I just, how can I make brands look at me a little different? And that's why I think it's so incredible you guys have done a media kits. Because this is what I've been looking for to eventually put out into the world is that I want brands to be able to know like not only do I can potentially do cool art for you, I can actually have a reach and a presence. And when I realized that when I had the gallery I was like, no, this is, this is powerful. And if I can get brands to, you know, believe in this through social and physical, then it's a win, win. And so that I think it was, it was about five years ago and I just started posting, you know, like I didn't, I often, there's been times where I haven't posted enough but I actually this week I finally hired, well last week, sorry, a full time social media in house person who's gonna be shooting all my content. So I have like four different type of vlogs coming out every week and a ton of behind the scenes and like I'm like ramping it up to like, like the biggest level that I personally can because I think it's, I think it's super important. As we continue to, you know, grow I want to, I want to make sure that I'm telling my story properly and, and documenting everything because I think documenting everything is so important.

100%. You do such a good job at that. I love all your content, man.

Yeah, thank you man.

Very cool. I have like two more questions before we wrap up here, Anthony. One is just when you think about the future of like the art communities and you said it very well, it's about the arts. Like what is one of your 10, 20, 50 year goals when it comes to art, whether that's being, you know, having a commission from a certain individual or doing like a huge activation, like what is the, you know, like big vision when it comes to art? Because I know like on my side, like what I follow a bunch of cool artists, whether that's cause or my buddy Daniel Allen Cohen and they all have their own style. And you see some people just doing unique projects on a massive scale. You're like, wow, I didn't even think that was possible. Right. So how do you approach. Yeah, how do you look at that?

So I think it's definitely twofold. I think first and foremost the eventual end game, the 50 year plan, I guess we can say is like museums and extremely large scale galleries around the world that are more on the historical side. Where my art can live forever is the dream. It's what we're working towards. It's about creating pieces that are timeless and pieces that will be able to eventually hang in museums. So that's a definite art goal. My, my personal goal and also ties to businesses. I look at someone like a Virgil Abloh, who's now the creative director for Louis Vuitton, founder of Off White and a bunch of different other crazy, terrible things. I'm sure you know him and a couple other artists like that. I look at him as an artist because he's been able to, you know, transform brands as well. And I think my goal, my goal is going to be in the next five to 10 years is to go in from an artist perspective into companies like Louis Vuitton, like Fendi, like these high fashion houses and, and bring an artist perspective which, which brands have done, you know, Gucci's done collaborations, Fendi done collaborations with artists and a bunch of these, you know, top companies have now. But I want to look at it as a little bit of a bigger scale in terms of like, you know, creative direction for, for these brands, creative direction for, for these, you know, big fashion houses. Not only fashion, we're talking about appliances, talking about home, building luxury homes and really implementing art into every facet of life. I think that's where my future strength will come into play, is how I can not only translate on canvas, but eventually working with top architects, which I've been grateful enough to do already, but also work with top architects around the world to design incredible spaces that people live in that are works of art and then from there work with brands that, you know, everything from the way that we use a MacBook is a work of art. Right. And I want to be able to, you know, be on the front line of that and creating artwork that we truly live and we're engulfed by.

I love that. So last question here. I mean, I think not only is your story incredible, but the journey and the process of creating your art is so incredible to watch. So where is the best place for everyone to follow you, to stay connected, to inquire about a piece of art? Let the people know.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely Instagram. Instagram is where I spend 90% of my day. And I will be. I will be opening, like finally doing a proper YouTube which will have my long format vlogs that will release every Wednesday and on Saturday and Sundays I have short format vlogs that live on Instagram. So it's going to be mainly Instagram. Richardi Paints is my last name. Paints is on Instagram and on my website and all that fun stuff. But. But definitely, definitely Instagram.

I love that. Well, Anthony, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to pop on calling, man. I really appreciate it and I'm looking forward to doing some more cool work with you in the future, man.

Oh, we're gonna bring something brainstorm, something super fun soon, bro.

Thank you, Anthony.

Awesome, man. We'll see you soon. Okay.

All right, talk to you soon.

Bye Bye.

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