Rich Tu for a talk at Swarthmore.

EVOLUTION OF A MODERN ARTIST — PART ONE

Beauty in life is found in the moments. What lives in these moments is potential, and when you maximize this potential in real-time — dreams become reality. You may wake up one morning to find yourself in a spot you never envisioned. A spot, that may or may not bring the joy or happiness you were looking for. But you’re in luck, because you, you live in America. Here you have a choice, to either live the same mundane everyday grind, going through the motions, or simply change your mind. Our time spent with visual artist Rich Tu is about the latter: As he went from working the XM Satellite Radio kiosk at your local neighborhood mall, to getting his galvanizing illustrations into the back pages of The New Yorker. And that’s the appetizer.

Running all over NYC, we sat down with Rich on two separate occasions to get his story. Starting at Trix in Williamsburg, all topics of the artist’s life were open for discussion. From the new iPhone app Pozzle, that he co-created with Charles Jamerlan, to spending his birthday in jail, competing in his first Tough Mudder and the creative process, we covered it all:

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: Tell us about this crazy Art Directors Club Mural you worked on this year, where’s it located?

RICH TU: I worked on that with Tim Goodman from L.A. and the crew. They’re all amazing artists. The crew being Mikey Burton, who lives in Philly and Chris Rubino, who flew in from the UK. We did it for the Young Guns program. They asked us to come up with a design for the girl’s bathroom at the Art Directors Club, and asked the girl’s to design the guy’s bathroom. The girls got competitive though and were like, “we have to beat the guys,” but honestly we had no idea, no plan of what we were going to produce. It all just came together nicely at the last minute, and I really enjoyed the whole experience of working with them.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: It looks pretty cool. Now you didn’t necessarily follow a conventional route in becoming an artist, what did you study in undergrad?

RICH TU: I was a Communication and Psych major.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: Wait, how did you go from Comm and Psych, to deciding you wanted to be apart of the creative world? That’s a pretty big jump.

RICH TU: After I graduated from school, I took a look at the job opportunities and the market out there, and I was either stuck with sketchy marketing gigs or doing sales for Metlife. None of that appealed to me. Eventually I got an internship at the music production house Pulse, and I dug it. I enjoyed the industry and that’s when I told myself, “I like creativity,” liked being in the context of like-minded human beings, and really believing that when you’re being creative — you can do anything. From there I worked on my art and getting into the Masters of Illustration program at S.V.A.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: And what were you doing to support yourself while all this was going on?

RICH TU: You know those kiosks you see in the malls for cell phones and stuff. Well I was that guy you walked by who was trying to sell you things. I worked at the XM Satellite Radio kiosk, was a substitute teacher and a personal trainer for about one and a half years.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: Wow. Amazing. Changing gears here, there was another Pacquiao vs. Marquez fight recently, what did you think, did Pacquiao really win this time?

RICH TU: Yes. And I’m not just saying that because he’s my fellow countryman and because I love him. Even though it went the whole 12 rounds, Marquez didn’t dominate him. To beat the champ — you have to beat the champ.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: Do you wanna see Mayweather vs. Pacquiao?

RICH TU: Of course, but that fight needs to happen sooner than later, because Pacquiano’s window of dominance is closing.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: True. So before we talk about you as an illustrator, can you tell us about this new iPhone app you built? What’s Pozzle?

RICH TU: Pozzle is an app that brings your digital network back into your world within a group setting, through event management, rewards and incentives.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: All Right. How does it work?

RICH TU: People set up events within the app, it can be anything, like “Free Hugs” or a party or whatever. Once you’ve set up an event, you invite your friends to join you and once they show up, you click connect and you’re set, you’re connected. From there you can share the event on Twitter or Facebook and get all your friends to roll through. What we’re trying to do, what we want, is to encourage deeper social media connections, something more than just updating your status.

THE SOUL DYNAMIC: When I spoke to you last, you were excited. You said you had “crazy stories” for this interview. What were you talking about?

RICH TU: Oh yeah man! I spent my birthday behind bars…

What follows is an EPIC tale of adventure and hilarity, filled with appearances from occupy wall streeters, the honorable night court judge Harry T. Stone and a hero in Kareem Black. Sound good? It’s a little more than that, best check us out next week for parts two and three of this interview. We’ll dive into this story, Rich’s wide portfolio of work and what exactly he means when he says “I just wanna milk cows.”

Last week Pozzle version 1.2 launched. Make sure to download it here now so you’re not missing out on all the fun! And come back tomorrow, where we’ll reveal our Top Ten of 2011 and our final FRIDAY JUMPOFF of the year.

Writer: Del Toro Alma

Artist: Rich Tu