Ella Richards

Artist Statement
Ella Richards Scissors Drawings

Where do we find happiness?
We search for it
we pursue it
trying to find it
when all the time it is just there
it comes when you stop
expecting it
stopped hoping
not afraid
Ella Richards

I was asked why I create the art I do. What do I want to communicate? I created the little poem above to answer these questions. We search so hard and earnestly for happiness that we forget that isn’t over there or in the future, it is here. It is around you now. I feel that happiness often comes from memories of past events and hopes for future dreams. I like doing portraits because they allow me to touch and capture these hidden chords of memory.
Why Scissors Drawings. I call my art scissors drawings because it focuses on 2 skills necessary to create my art, drawing and cutting. I take my original drawing and cut it out of black paper., cutting in one thin continuous line when possible. The image is then glued to watercolor paper and small details such as eyes are added. My tools are simple, my drawing, a sheet of black paper, a scissors, a glue pen and a sheet of watercolor paper. Which is wonderful because it allows me to create art in my small Greenwich Village apartment.
About me I have been doing watercolors for as long as I can remember. Then sometime around the arrival of my first child my life changed and so did my art. My life became immeasurably more complex and my art became simpler. At one point I stopped doing watercolors and turned solely to paper cuts because I realized that drawings could be done to look like a painting when cut out of a black sheet of paper. This was the simplicity I sought from my art. It allowed me to focus and isolate the line and emotion of the piece.
My design influences My Estonian background led me to the simple black and white paper cuttings of Hans Christian Anderson and others. I love the city portraits and scenes of the Northern Renaissance and Japanese art, particularly wood cuts. There are also a handful of Russian and Soviet Artists I like, Repin and Serov have wonderful portraits and I love Rodckenko’s line and emotion.