Gifts Continue to Give
"I went to great teachers to learn about the voice. I went to great teachers to learn about the emotions. I went to great teachers to learn about expressing oneself physically. What I would now like to do is find a teacher who could show me how to walk down to the footlights and—by just standing there, by doing nothing—be like a lighthouse illuminating and giving hope to the audience."
“Gifts Continue to Give” is the perfect metaphor for the generous artistic legacy that Richard “Richey” Kehl left to the world during his lifetime. His rare combination of humility, profound intellectual depth, visual sensitivity, and childlike wonder was always available for him to draw upon and extend to others. These gifts were not just a reflection of his artistic values and priorities—they also revealed who he was as a person.
In my research to include more information about Richey’s art background, I was initially disappointed to find only the usual, yawn-inducing and conventional “laundry lists” that academics often compile: degrees, lists of exhibitions, and notable awards. But finally, through my own diligence, I discovered an alternative and more poetic summary of Richey’s interior life, written by his wife Suzie, who was also a poet and Richey’s artistic collaborator:
Richard Kehl, visual poet and author, is an Advanced Scout...
not a Scout into the future, or into any particular time or world,
nor a Scout in an attempt to accomplish anything avant-garde...
but rather a Scout singing of a trust in the invisible.
When Richey passed away on August 29, 2025, just short of his “90th year” (his words to me in an email he sent the day before), I was among the students and other admirers who had long recognized and revered the “Illuminating Lighthouse” that he was.
In this sequel to part one of Richey’s story, I’ll be presenting visual treasures that he gathered over a lifetime of inexhaustible readings and artistic explorations. They include selections taken from world art, design, poetry, and his own work—all interspersed with side pilgrimages to the shrines of enlightening or absurd humor—and contained within a mind I call the Museum of Illumination.
I received the title for this post from a longer comment that a wise-beyond-her-years young woman left for me after reading Intuitive Benedictions. I think of her as my ever-eloquent “Fairy Goddaughter,” and her comment appears below in its entirety:
Thank you for commemorating this important relationship. This eulogy is a reminder of the impact of our delicate daily interactions. You've been an intuitive guide to many, perhaps sometimes inspired and fed by intuitive benedictions from Mr. Kehl. Gifts continue to give.
— S. Imbrock
A Museum of Illumination
Proprietor: Richard Kehl. Entrance fee: Zero
Beginning around 2015, Richey Kehl began using the relatively new technology of the cell phone to digitally keep in touch with his many former students and admirers, and I was among the early subscribers. All you had to do was sign up to receive his emails, and Richey’s latest visual inspirations would arrive in your inbox to help awaken and activate your neural pathways to greater heights of investigation. A flat, black and white, one-dimensional crossword puzzle might have provided similar effects, but it would have been far less personable.
As an added advantage of digital access, Richey is still available, day or night, to guide his acolytes through the many galleries that exist in the museum of his mind. The next tour will begin soon.
Wonders
Exquisite Beauty
In the following gallery, I include some of the imagery that Richey collected over many years and later sent to me and others. This gallery presents diverse artistic forms and details in a caption-less format—all the better for creating a personal interpretation of a visual story, which is just as Richey would have preferred.
Key to images:
From top to bottom:
– Woman Wearing an Under-sash, by Ito Shinsui
– St. Catherine with Heart Book (detail), anonymous
– “Longing of the Hands” (Robert Bresson, frame from Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966
– Bird dress, by Chi Hsuan Huang
– Heart Sutra fragment on torso, by Ponte Ryuurui
– Teacup and Lace, painting by Juliana Kolesova
– Ghent Altarpiece: St. John the Baptist (detail), by Jan van Eyck, 1432
Thoughts and Poems
“The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”
I got nothing done today.
But many things were done in me.
Birds that do not exist
they found their nest.
Shadows that might exist
their bodies were found.
Each day I move toward that which I do not understand.
The result is a continuous accidental learning which
constantly shapes my life.
“I'm thinking” is said in Japanese, “I keep shaking my own heart."
Art and Artists
The photos below include some of Richey’s favorite historical artists.
Smiles
Design
Richey Kehl never ascribed to the idea of any hierarchy existing within the art world. His enthusiasm for visual beauty extended to ceramics, silk screened textiles, and more. In his mind, every artistic work was a new adventure of equal aesthetic value.
For many years, Richey and his wife Suzie collaborated on designing works for the Creation Project Gallery in Japan, which contracted with world artists to develop innovative designs in many categories. The Gallery chose a different artistic theme every year, and then took orders to reproduce the works for sales to the gallery’s patrons. The artist would retain the original work, and funds generated by sales to patrons would be given to various charities.
One year, the Creation Project Gallery chose “watches” as the design theme, so Richey designed the “Calavera Watch.” In his description of the design he wrote, “I thought it would be great to look at the time on the watch face and realize that you would be dead soon!”
“Kehlages”
As a humorous play on the word “collage,” Richey invented his own term to define his wide-ranging exploration of this unique artistic genre. It includes his own dark-toned and serious triptychs, adaptations of world design motifs, and even a humorous collaged envelope sent across the sea to a waiting art director in Japan.
Richey had his own unique process for creating his collages: first, he identified and carefully cut around visual elements that attracted his attention. When he had an entire table filled with cut-out images on foamboard, the real magic of composition began:
I have nothing to do with it. I wait for them (the images) to tell me where they belong and what to do next.
As the pinnacle of a Kehl-designed fantasy, Richey sent the envelope below to a Japanese art director, complete with real stamps:
Speaking Softly
The time will come for all of us when we will need to set aside harsh thoughts and words to speak softly to those we love, who may be waiting for our presence to comfort them in a time of need.
In 2022, as a gesture of comfort when they needed it, I sent Richey and Suzie an email that included a video of pianist Glenn Gould playing one of Bach’s most famous arias. Bach’s music has always been a beacon of light for me in difficult times, and the past two months since Richey’s death has been one of those times. For me, Bach’s aria provides the perfect closure to a period of reflection and sorrow.
Like Richey, Glenn Gould was a sensitive soul in an insensitive world, and in the video below, he interprets one of Bach’s musical masterpieces with the hymn-like reverence it deserves: slowly feeling his way through the phrasing, softly humming along with the melody line, and soothing his soul with the music’s evocative beauty, which arrives through Bach from another world.
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