Emily Rich: An Artist and a Caregiver

Emily Rich has paint running through her veins.

At an early age, she began to show precocity for art. Rich was constantly drawing – a pencil, paintbrush and watercolor always on hand – ready to commit to paper the products of her fertile imagination. At the age of 14, she was producing sketches of famous people copied from newspaper photographs with uncanny resemblance to the originals and drawing pretty women wearing pretty dresses.

An only child, Rich was born in the bronx. She chose the High School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan to further her education and to hone her talents. Her no-nonsense father wanted her to pursue a practical career like bookkeeping, while her idealistic mother said, “be anything you want to be.”

After high school, feeling restless and craving freedom and adventure, Rich moved to Denver, Colorado, with a friend. She immediately found work as a “Gal friday” in an advertising agency, earning $50 a week, a princely sum in those days, and she learned to do artwork for department stores. She recalls that she had a good time there and had many friends, including a boyfriend who wanted to marry her and take her to Alaska. “Not for me,” she said.

Her work enabled her to build up an impressive portfolio. After four years, she realized that living in Denver was just not enough, and she moved back to New York, the center of art and fashion, and the place “where I can make things happen.” It was the early ’60s.

Back in her home turf, she went to lots of drawing classes and freelanced as a fashion illustrator. She experimented with her fashion illustrations by setting chic, beautifully dressed women against scenic backgrounds, giving them a finearts look that made them stand out among other fashion illustrations.

Rich, now 73 and a frequent visitor to Village Care’s Senior Information program, considers herself fortunate for having taken art classes under talented teachers in prestigious schools. One of her most admired teachers was Norman Raeben who taught from his studio at Carnegie Hall, and who introduced her to oil as a medium. Raeben thought her first efforts were “rather good.” Rich did not know what she was doing, but she loved it right away.

At the New School, she was under the tutelage of Minoru kawabata, “a wonderful minimalist” with whom she enjoyed a good rapport. kawabata compared her work with that of francis bacon, an Irish abstract painter known for his “bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery.” At that time, Rich did not know what kind of artist to consider herself. kawabata called her “an abstract artist, and her reaction to that was, she says today: “I didn’t know what he was talking about but I knew this was a guy whom I could trust.” Simultaneously, she took drawing classes at the School of Visual Arts with a man named Jack Potter. As she learned painting and drawing techniques from these two men, she began to form a style of her own.

Another strong influence came in the person of Bruce Dorfman, an art teacher at the Art Student League. She got into his master class of people whom he liked and they would meet and analyze each other’s works. She improved her craft through the give-and-take with her peers and the guidance of Dorfman.

As she continued freelancing by selling her fashion illustrations to the top department stores of her day, it occurred to her that if she could sell her work to these clients, why not sell the works of other fashion illustrators as well? And she ended up being an agent for her friends and other artists. She supplemented her income by teaching college-level art courses for high school students at the Newark School of Art and Design. She had a nice career and made a good living.

Her artwork once proved to be handy in a different way. When her dentist presented her with a hefty bill, she offered to pay half of it with a painting, and to her surprise, the dentist agreed.

Sometime in the mid-’60s, Rich met Martin Birmingham, a successful realtor, and they traveled extensively within and outside the U.S. During one trip, Birmingham gave Rich a camera and when she learned all its complexities and intricacies, she developed a love for photography. Her experimentations resulted in abstract shots and double exposures. She made greeting cards and sold them to stores in the Village and at Barney’s, which bought a sizeable order. Her greeting card series featuring her exquisite shots of Fire Island were likewise a big hit and brought her fame through rave reviews in the local newspapers. She and Birmingham established a small business called Emily Rich Designs, selling greeting cards and T-shirts that she designed and created. The business closed shortly after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

Then came the computer. At first, she was resistant to it, but after she learned its many features and the wide range of things she could do with it, she began to use it to create “new art from old art.” She posterized, digitized, pixilated and distorted her old paintings and photographs and gave them an amazingly fresh look. Becoming familiar and comfortable with the computer “opened up a whole new world for me,” she said.

Rich became a consummate Abstract Expressionist artist. Her paintings have created excitement for her daring use of colors and for the feeling of movement that seems to jump out of the canvas, while her painterly eye, peering through a camera’s viewfinder, has produced photographs with unexpected visual effects. She has been honored with prestigious awards and her paintings and photographs have been seen in solo and group exhibitions all over New York State.

She has taught young people at the fashion Institute of Technology and senior citizens at The Caring Community, and has held classes in her art studio on West 20th Street. One of her paintings hangs on the wall of the NYU Cancer Institute and another is in the office of an orthopedic doctor in Idaho.

On August 21, 2007, Rich suddenly found herself engaged in a totally different and unfamiliar form of art – the art of caregiving.

The day started like any other day in her apartment on West 13th Street, which she has been sharing with Birmingham since 1999. As he stood up from his chair, Birmingham fell, hit his head, and suffered brain hemorrhage. He was brought to the nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he underwent several procedures, and despite good preliminary signs, he fell into a coma that lasted for about three weeks. When he came to, he endured rehabilitation and a stay in a nursing home. Since Birmingham does not have any relatives, Rich became Birmingham’s caretaker.

Like being hit by a thunderbolt, Rich was introduced to the bureaucracy of health care, tons of paperwork, various medications with strange-sounding names…and the worry that she was going to lose her friend. “I felt I was being ripped apart,” she said. but she rose to the challenge. She familiarized herself with prescription medicines and their side effects. She got much needed support from friends. She learned to appreciate the excellent doctors who took care of Birmingham. She was on top of everything. She became stronger.

She found valuable help from the staff at the Village Care of New York’s walk-in information center.

Rich said she found a “lifeline” at the Village Senior Information Center. No matter what the problem was – Medicaid, Medicare, home energy assistance, income taxes, subsidized living, or whatever – the staff was always there, willing to help.

With a letter, a phone call, or a click of the mouse, they were able to come up with a solution, “giving me a sense of relief,” she said. At times, when feeling depressed or overwhelmed, Rich hung out in the center, socializing with the staff and the other seniors who go there. “I feel better just for having dropped in,” she said. Two of her paintings were hung on the wall of the center, which is in the process of relocating.

Birmingham is home now, feeling as if he has been reborn, his memory coming back, albeit in a jumbled order. He is ready to do something, he said, if only he knew what.

Eventually, with her friend safe and sound and with someone to see to his needs, Rich has found time to do what she loves to do. She had a show coming up at the West Side Art Coalition called Art and Soul and many of her works are featured in www.barebrush.com, gaining her wider exposure.

On the first day that Birmingham came out of his coma, Rich visited him at the hospital, and to her pleasant surprise, she found him sitting, looking and feeling well, and doing one of his favorite things – reading The New York Times. During their travels, Rich has taken many photos of him perusing whatever newspaper was handy, with various cities in the world as background. Soon, Rich will turn these photos into a collection.

Life may bring many surprises and many hard knocks, but Rich will always have her art.