Standing in the middle of famed artist Aminah Robinson’s kitchen, Richard Duarte Brown finds himself unable to argue when it’s suggested that he’s having a moment.  

“It’s a moment. It really is a moment,” says the mixed-media artist. 

Never mind that the 64-year-old Whitehall resident is filling out paperwork for Medicare and talking with his wife, Pat, about retirement plans.  

While Brown has been a pillar in the central Ohio arts community for decades, especially in his work with underserved youth, he’s seen accolades the past few months he’d never imagined.  

Not only is Brown the current Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Artist-in-Residence and painting new works in the recently renovated space now housed in the late artist’s Near East Side home, but last month Brown was honored with a Governor’s Award for the Arts. 

Though an accomplished artist known for his brightly colored portraits and unconventional use of everyday objects in them (hubcaps and toilet seats as canvases, for example), Brown said it means a bit more to be recognized in the Arts Education category than simply for his own artwork.  

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And to have all this success, no matter the timing, happen in Columbus — where he’s called home since he was 13 — is all the sweeter.  

In elementary school, he told family members he wanted to be an artist. They rebuffed his dreams saying he couldn’t support a family doing that. Or he wasn’t creative enough. Or he’d have to move someplace like New York City to make it big.  

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “I feel like I’m in New York and having my New York moment — but I don’t have to go anywhere.” 

Decades later, he’s made art his life’s work with his wife of 28 years, two grown children and two grandchildren nearby.  

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“He’s put a lot of work and time into this and he didn’t give up,” Pat Brown said. “It’s exciting all these things are happening at once. He’s been rejected lots of times so it’s good to see him honored.” 

Of course, winning awards and selling out gallery shows has never been what art is about for Brown.  

He explains art as something he has to do — a passion he was born to do.  

He didn’t allow a less-than-ideal upbringing, rejection letters, a busy family life or his hours spent helping others hone their crafts get in the way of his own artistic journey. 

“I always make time for art,” Brown said. “It’s like paying a bill. You do it or you get kicked out. You make art or you lose the time to make it.” 

Coming up in the African American arts scene in Columbus, Brown had some of the best mentors a young Black artist in the urban center of Columbus could ask for.  

Not only did he pal around with his older brother’s friends at Columbus College of Art & Design, he also worked in art supply shops frequented by the likes of Smoky Brown and others. He met Elijah Pierce at the woodcarver’s barbershop, worked shows alongside his residency namesake Robinson and sold pieces out of the King Arts Complex and Kojo Kamau’s nonprofit gallery ACE (Art for Community Expression).  

Even today he recalls advice given to him by those artists. 

Though Robinson died in 2015 at the age of 75, Brown still conjures up images of her intense eyes telling him to “do your art — speak through the arguments, the questions, survival, uncertainty … just make your art.” 

Smoky Brown had similar words for him.  

“Use your gifts, Ricky,” Brown said. “Ricky — that’s what Smoky called me.” 

And it’s fortunate Brown surrounded himself with these talents, as he could’ve easily let the noise around him and the shadow of his past thwart his goals.  

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Brown had a rough upbringing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, not knowing his father until later in life and moving from family member to family member, and even staying in foster homes at times.  

However, he was introduced to Picasso at age 6 and created art out of anything he could find — chicken bones, plaster, glue, rice.  

As a young teen, he moved to Columbus to live with an older brother, but soon after,  dropped out of high school and began drinking alcohol. 

He said although addiction began to take hold, his desire to create art proved too strong. He started painting more and drinking less. He entered his work in contests at galleries, the Ohio State Fair and elsewhere. (He got a GED in 1977.) 

“I’m an artist and no one had to tell me that,” Brown said. “I didn’t wait for them to tell me to paint.” 

His need to create drove him, but it was perhaps his desire to ensure future generations had what they needed — paintbrushes, a meal, a shoulder to cry on — that shaped Brown as an artist. 

“I gravitated to where the kids come in,” he said. “I want to give them what I never had. Mentoring — we do it naturally if we love what we do.” 

Jackie Calderone said Brown is as comfortable teaching young people around a canvas as he is around a dinner table.  

As founding director of Transit Arts, a nonprofit that provides free art classes, and someone who has worked alongside Brown in the community for three decades, she said few compare to the artist in his ability to relate to others.  

“He creates art and came from nothing — the streets of New Jersey,” Calderone said. “He deeply relates to some of the situations our teens are dealing with. He relates to everyone we engage with, whether that be inner city or suburban. No one gets labeled and that means a lot to him.” 

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Calderone said she’s not sure how some of the youth arts programs in the city would’ve developed or survived without Brown’s input.  

He has a gift for assessing a student’s needs, she continued. As an educator, he was practicing “trauma-informed care” way before it was a buzzword. 

And a lot of times that comes in the form of a meal. 

Calderone said she has fond memories of weekend youth retreats to Hocking Hills and Brown would always make pancakes and sausage for the group.  

“Duarte was a bonus dad — making breakfast for them, hiking with them, really going deep on stories and helping them work on healing,” Calderone said. “It’s a constant feeding in all these ways ... He’s the great nurturer.” 

Students in Christina Clumm’s classroom at Berne Union High School in Fairfield County frequently ask when Brown will be teaching there next. Some students who aren’t even in her art class will stop by on days when he’s painting.  

As an artist in residence at the school — sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council — Brown visits the school once a week. He also works with students in Whitehall City Schools through the same program, which he’s been a part of for more than five years.  

Clumm, who met Brown when they were both older adult students at Ohio Dominican University (Brown graduated at 50), knew the teens would resonate with his exceptional artwork but also the manner in which he talks to children.

“I knew he’d be authentic with his story,” Clumm said. “He provides a different perception of an artist in general.” 

He’s always generous with his time, Clumm continued, and finds a way to connect with the students struggling the most.  

“He’ll stay later and say ‘I’ve got a little paint left on my palette, let me stay until it’s gone,’” Clumm said. “He’s open to showing his flaws — ‘Oh, hey I messed up on that.’” 

Brown said he simply wants to “pass the brush” — a favorite saying of his. 

One day in 2015, Donte Woods-Spikes walked into the Central Community House on the Near East Side to an excited Brown pushing paintbrushes in his hands and asking him to pose for a portrait.  

That would become known as “Pass the Brush.” 

“His life — everything he’s done — he's entrusting to the next generation,” said Woods-Spikes, a Driving Park photographer. “The fact that he used my face for that, I did not take that lightly.” 

Woods-Spikes, 31, said anyone painted by Brown is impacted positively, especially young people.  

“From my perspective, paintings were of the ‘Mona Lisa’ or things from so long ago or things I didn’t have access to or I was not interested in,” Woods-Spikes said. “He paints the kids. He paints someone who just opened a new business. He paints the homeless guy — anyone he saw something in.” 

Because of this, Woods-Spikes nominated Brown for the Governor’s Award. Winning the award speaks to the larger mission of his painting, Brown said.  

“Somewhere in this work is the deepest cry and desire to give Black leadership a voice and to get to a point where we don’t have to say Black, it’s just leadership,” Brown said. “Where’s Black leadership? I’m trying to paint that.” 

Back at Aminah’s house, Brown works on a portrait of a family member.  

He said he’s cherishing this moment in his career and having an inspirational space to work in for the next few months. His residency ends in April.  

However, he said he doesn’t need the residency or recognition to continue making art: “Studio is a state of mind.” 

Still, it doesn’t hurt to have the reminders of all the wonderful and generous Black artists who came before him, surrounding him in a place like Aminah’s house at least for a little while.  

“People always want the formula and there isn’t one,” Brown said. “It’s just like Aminah said: ‘Make art,’ and what Smoky said: ‘Use your gifts.’”