About the Artist
The dinner table conversation sometimes turns to Karson Riche’s great-grandfather, about the oil paintings he made as a young boy, often on found materials. These heirlooms are kept in storage to protect them from sunlight, but when extended family gets together for a meal of red beans or spaghetti and gumbo, the paintings come out, bright recreations of famous artworks, painted on child’s bed sheets.
Now in eighth grade, Riche has grown up with this inherited appreciation for art. She is enrolled in the talented art program at her junior high school in Mandeville, LA, and she has already won a handful of state contests.
“My first ever sketch was one I did when I was a really little,” she says. “I drew a mallard, because I used to go to a pond with my grandparents to look at ducks.” Riche began to carry around her own sketchpad and would often create drawings as gifts for family and friends.
Her favorite subject? “I really like Disney characters, like from A Goofy Movie and Ratatouille,” she says. “But I also use paintings to express myself, to show emotions through a picture.”
Most of her work is done in acrylic, and as she continues to hone her craft, Riche says she would like to one day work for Disney Animation.
On the Cover: A Field of Positivity and Hope
But Riche also has a second career goal. “I’d like to be a diabetes educator,” she says. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 4 years ago, at the age of 10, when her parents noticed her extreme fatigue after school one day. While urgent care doctors dismissed their initial concerns, her pediatrician decided to check Riche’s blood glucose after she complained of thirst.
“My number was 400 or 500,” she says. “They were surprised I was functioning.”
While the diagnosis was frightening at first, Riche does not dwell on the negative.
“I always tell myself that diabetes does not have me, it’s just another part that makes me, me,” she says. “I don’t make it a bad thing, because I know that I’m unique and I can help others by being a role model for people with diabetes.”
This resilient outlook is reflected in A Field of Positivity and Hope.
“I drew a girl walking through a sunflower field, and I specifically chose sunflowers because they’re a symbol of hope and positivity,” Riche says. “I wanted to show that even though she had diabetes, she didn’t dwell on that in life. She gave herself positivity.”
This painting, watercolor, was completed in 2024.
