ARTIST’S STATEMENT

“The art of sand paintings is created by several people of the world. The Navajo medicine men create and destroy them in a twelve-hour period, (they are used in psychotherapy to make an ill person well.) They are also created and destroyed by the Aborigines in Australia; the Tibetan Monks also create them and put them in the ocean (‘they become rain’). They have also been discovered in Japan in 300 B.C.

I taught myself how to sand paint in 1968, 35 years ago; to this day (May 5, 2003) and to my knowledge, I am the only sand painter on the West Coast of the United States. All my work is created ‘freehand’; I do not draw them first. I look at a photograph and create them accordingly, or create them from memory. The sands used by me are mostly natural and I go and get them from Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, California, and Texas. About 4% of the colors are created by me. ”

PROFILE

Riley has exhibited his work at many art shows and galleries throughout California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. His work is featured in many collections throughout the world.