Local artist and 2009 VCU alum Richie Pope has been on a roll lately, illustrating two Google Doodles earlier this year and publishing illustrations in The New York Times, The Atlantic and The New Yorker.
Pope said he discovered his love of artistic storytelling early. Growing up, his mother didn’t buy him many comics, so between getting the occasional book from the local 7/11, he decided to get resourceful.
“I had my own little comic series with my own little fake logo,” Pope said.
In addition to having a growing stack of scrapbook comics, Pope said he would also spend time watching superhero cartoons and absorbing their complex, drawn-out story lines.
Pope explained how, like many teenage creatives, his tastes began to gain more of an edge during his high school years, as he used his art to channel the personal pain and angst of youth. But he was already showing a knack for seeing the the world outside of his own experiences.
“In high school, I spent more time inside watching CNN than I did going outside,” Pope said. “Like, do other kids sit around and watch CNN?”
After graduating high school and talking with one of his teachers, Pope decided to give VCU and its in-state tuition a try. Though art was his passion, his path wasn’t immediately clear. He credits the Arts Foundation program and professor Sterling Hundley with turning him onto illustration.
“I only knew that (things like) children’s books were illustrated,” Pope said. “I didn’t know that an illustrator was an actual title until I came to VCU.”
He said that illustration allowed him to tell stories at a pace that was appealing to him.
“At 18, I was too impatient to be an animator, too impatient to do comics,” Pope said. “But I could just do an image and say something. It was still storytelling.”
Outside of figuring out his lane as an artist, Pope credits his time at VCU with helping him to grow as a person in addition to the Arts Foundation program helping him find his direction in studying illustration.
“I used to be really, really scared of people,” Pope said. “I just got thrown into situations that I wouldn’t have asked for, but sometimes you’ve just got to be pushed forward. (VCU) taught me confidence in myself and in my story.”
Since graduating in 2009, Pope said his work has become more political because he feels it has become more important for him to share his experiences with others.
Pope said he’s stayed in touch with many of the people he met during his time at VCU, and they’ve assembled their own collection of artists.
“A lot of us are doing really cool stuff(…)When I got the Google Doodle, a friend of mine called up and we just talked,” Pope said. “He’s been getting into the National Portrait Gallery and we’re just talking like ‘Man this is weird. We were just nineteen-year-olds with less facial hair.’”
Pope is beginning to set a precedent for Richmond’s style, as his influence trickles down to the next wave of area artists.
“Me and the my friends have accidentally influenced people, and they come up and they’re like, ‘You inspire us!’” Pope said. “And then sometimes that gap starts to flatten, and then you’re all just friends and you hangout and you’re just inspiring each other.”
Pope said the strong community in Richmond, combined with the area’s relatively cheap rent, has kept him from moving to a bigger city like New York. He said he expects to continue doing work around the River City, but hopes to be exploring new fields in the next five years.
Music Desk, Josh Buck
I’m an almost annoyingly outspoken feminist who loves writing about gender and race in mainstream art. I once had to be almost physically removed from Disneyland because my friends said it’s not cool to be the very last person in the park. I can’t wait to graduate in the spring so I can point my car West with no money and no plan, and spend months seeing the country, writing and meeting people.