Trillium Woods Resident Artist Series: Richards and Heidi Poey

Richards (Dick) and Heidi Poey have been big names in the local art scene for the past 30 years – showcasing their work at venues including the Edina and Uptown Art Fairs, local galleries and the Minnesota State Fair – and we’re so happy they brought their love of sculpture and painting to the Trillium Woods community.

Ever since Dick was a child growing up in New York City, he marveled at the sculptural works he saw at the Met and the Museum of Modern Art. Dick spent 34 years working in the creative field of advertising and sales promotion with Eastman Kodak and Honeywell, and his art and design-related experience grew from there.

A native of Wattwil, Switzerland, Heidi comes from a family of painters. Before coming to the Twin Cities, Heidi had a career in international public relations that took her to museums across the globe.

The two met while working at Honeywell, bonding over discussing the best spots to eat in the area, and they married in 1991. Their life as artists, however, didn’t start until retirement.

“I said if I married, I would quit my job,” said Heidi. “As much fun as traveling is, I wanted to paint. Dick gave me a paint box, and off I went to take some classes. Before you know it, I started doing art fairs.”

Heidi Poey’s Art

Heidi is an accomplished landscape painter, taking much of her inspiration from years of travel, and considers herself a colorist. Her compositions let your eye roam in olive groves in Provence and Tuscany, they invite you to wander in the sun or seek the shade or to contemplate a sleeping dog.

“I started off with oil paints,” said Heidi. “Then I graduated towards the acrylics and stuck with them. I like the spontaneity of the acrylics, the freshness of the colors.”

Heidi’s art seeks to cheer up, to bring out a smile and to transport us to places we remember and long for. She has created some 950 paintings that she has sold at home art studio shows, art fairs, galleries and art centers. She jokes she has about 30 paintings left in her possession and all the others have found walls.

Dick Poey’s Art

After retiring, Dick also started taking life drawing classes at the University of Minnesota and later began sculpture programs at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts. Dick’s main focus is bronze and stone sculpting, and his sculptures are all about light and how light and shadows create form, gesture, texture and dimension. Dick says everything he creates has movement in it.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Dick about the bronze sculpting process. “It’s dirty, noisy, messy and time-consuming, but I love it.”

Dick and Heidi lived in their Eden Prairie home for 27 years before coming to Trillium Woods, and twice a year they would host studio shows for the public, turning their entire home into an art gallery.

“The pleasure and the thrill of creating was a business,” said Dick. “We decided that if we’re going to spend all this time and effort making and collecting art, we would try to sell it. That was a lot of fun because we got to know our customers face to face and we were very proud to be parts of their homes.”

Being married to each other has helped them grow as individual artists, through critiquing each other’s work. “We help each other in so many ways,” said Heidi. “It’s a great partnership.”

Although Dick and Heidi have since retired from their professional artwork, you can often find their work on display at Trillium Woods, whether in the rotating exhibit in the halls or during Resident Art Tours, when residents open their homes and share their personal art collections with the community. Dick’s bronze interpretation of famous Argentine ballerina Paloma Herrera is currently on display, which showcases the famous dancer’s remarkable fluidity.

“Making art was so beautiful while it lasted and we’re happy to look back on those times, but living here has opened up so many things,” said Heidi. “Before, we were afraid to leave our neighborhood with all the friends we had there, and we didn’t know that we would come here and have a multitude of what we had. There’s a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of fun we can have together.”

“We’re very lucky that we can be here and that we found this place,” said Dick.

Keep up with the Trillium Woods Artist Series on the Trillium Woods blog, where we’ll continue to feature talented resident artists in the coming months!