About Rick Soto

Rick begins his visual career:

“I began drawing at the ripe old age of 2 years. At first with my father’s black waxy shoe polish. I loved the smell. Then picking up my mother’s lip stick and nail polish. A lot of spankings took place. Really, a lot. Then magic happened – pencils! Any pencil would do, including my mother’s soft eye-brow pencils. More spankings. Oh well.
I drew on the walls, floors, shoes, garbage cans, even in the dirt. At some point I knew I wanted to become an artist or an architect. I haven’t stopped drawing, however the spankings have. Mom had one hell of an arm.”

By the age of 28 Rick took a gutsy step and created an advertising & design agency, Soto Associates.
Initially working with teeny-tiny companies to some of the world’s largest global corporations. The design & advertising agency won well over 140 creative awards regionally, nationally, and internationally.

A small sample of Soto Associates clients:
Bank of America - Siemens - Wells Fargo - Hewlett-Packard (7 national/global groups) - Philips - PG&E - Palm -
Claris (Apple) - Echelon - Nortel Networks - Cisco - Sun Microsystems - Amdocs - Applied Materials - 3Com - HCA - ILOG - Insight (Xerox) in addition to a number of innovative tech “start-up” corporations.

Fine art Art/Visuals has been shown:
SFMOMA - Crocker Museum - Turner Print Museum - Fresno Art Center - Carnegie Arts Center - Cherry Center for the Arts - SE Center for Photography – Los Altos Museum - CSUF - M Street Gallery - 1650 Gallery and others.

Today he lives in Los Altos and Carmel, California with his wife Carolyn and her 2 cats - Roxy & Rio.
Rick is allergic to cats.