The White She Wouldn't Give Up

"I think all of you contestants should choose a brand color and wear it in every episode so the audience can keep track of you and associate you with your color." Right away, everyone started calling out colors on the Zoom call. Several people wanted pink. Others wanted black. After everything settled, Rita Vicari said, "Well, of course I pick white."

Each of the 12 Outstanding Artist contestants wore a black apron with their name on it, and underneath it they wore a shirt in their branded color. I loved how quickly Rita knew. Of course she picked white, because Rita has been choosing white for as long as I have known her.

I first met Rita in 2018. She was one of the very first Mastery Program students, back in our beta year when everything was still new and a little scrappy. A cameraman followed me around the in-person class capturing the lessons, then we edited everything over the weekend and sent the classes out each Monday to about 100 students around the world. Rita lived in New Jersey at the time with her Italian husband and her one-year-old baby, and she showed up to every single Saturday morning Zoom mentoring call. She kept the pace of the program perfectly, like the star student she was.

On those calls, Rita had a very strong presence. She sat with a stoic look on her face, paying attention to everything. When she asked a question, her Russian accent only added to the intensity. I remember thinking she was probably very serious in real life, maybe even a little intimidating. But her art was strong from the beginning, and her style developed quickly because she already had such a clear sense of what she loved.

Rita had definite ideas about composition that were unique and creative. I remember her mostly white backgrounds, with abstract black shapes rolled into the middle and subjects emerging from them. A tiger might come out of the black shape, then disappear back into it. Some parts would push forward, and other parts would dissolve into the white. She was always playing with space, with objects coming forward and then disappearing again.

The stark white background was always her thing. I used to tell her not to leave the white of the canvas showing. If she wanted white, I told her, she needed to paint it intentionally, and it would be better if it were slightly off-white, or buttery, or leaning toward gray. But Rita wanted straight-out-of-the-tube pure white. She was immovable on the subject.

She listened to almost everything I told her, except that white. After a few times, I gave up and left her alone. Now I am so glad I did, because the thing I kept trying to correct became one of the strongest parts of her artistic voice. What looked to me like a rule she should not break became her signature.

It was not until I met Rita in person at graduation that I realized how wrong my first impression had been. She was warm, friendly, and fun. She laughed easily and did not take herself too seriously. She loved being with people. She was nothing like the icy, intense person I had imagined through the computer screen.

Over the next year, I watched her develop as an artist. She grew her social media, participated in shows, painted murals, sold quite a bit of work, and became a shining example of a Mastery Program graduate. She was not a great graduate because she obeyed every piece of advice perfectly. She was a great graduate because she learned what to receive, what to practice, and what to protect.

When I asked Rita if she wanted to become a coach and mentor for us, I was thrilled when she accepted. Now here we are, eight years later, and Rita has accomplished so much as an artist. She has a thriving career, a clear artistic voice, and a body of work that is unmistakably hers. Yet she still has such a heart to help other artists. She is one of our best mentors and one of the most requested by our students.

Rita is also the only coach and mentor who has attended every single annual coach retreat we have offered. At those retreats, we train our coaches to become better mentors, better communicators, and better guides for artists. We also help them develop their own art direction and continue building their businesses. Rita has taken advantage of everything we have offered, and each retreat has been deep and powerful. I have laughed and cried with Rita, and I have grown to love her friendship and her heart to truly help artists.

This year, Rita was a contestant on Outstanding Artist and easily progressed into the second part after the first big eliminations. That did not surprise me at all. Rita is a strong artist with tremendous skill, and she can usually keep a cool head under pressure. After more than 1,000 paintings, she has built the kind of confidence that only comes from doing the work again and again.

That kind of confidence is not the belief that every painting will be perfect. It is the deeper knowledge that you can make decisions, solve problems, and keep moving. Rita can stand in front of a complicated composition and trust herself. She has earned that trust brushstroke by brushstroke.

Rita is truly an outstanding artist and exceptional at what she does. She protects her vision and stays true to it no matter what. Her calling to paint the whitest white, and to use white as her compositional superpower, feels like more than an aesthetic choice to me now. I think it has become a metaphor for her sweet, kind, pure heart.

Although Rita is successful and has every reason to focus only on her own career, she still devotes herself to her students. She pours her whole heart into anything she can do to help them grow and overcome their challenges. She truly loves people, and she shares her unique talents generously. Nothing about her feels held back.

As artists, I do not think it is enough to be skilled, or to create fascinating work, or even to make something beautiful. Those things matter, but they are not the whole story. Van Gogh once wrote, "The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others." I think Rita understands that in a very real way.

Yes, Rita Vicari is truly a master of composition. But even more impressive to me is her rare ability to love artists and hold nothing of herself back from them. Anyone who has the opportunity to learn from Rita is truly blessed, because they will gain more than technical ability. They will encounter someone who has spent years protecting her own vision, and now uses that strength to help other artists protect theirs.

That is one of the reasons I am so excited to teach alongside Rita at our Composition & Flow workshop in Sarasota. From July 31 to August 2, Rita and I will be working with artists in the studio on the thing that subtly decides whether a painting holds together: composition. Rita has such a gift for helping artists see structure, movement, space, and intuition more clearly. If you have ever felt that your work is almost there but something is not quite landing, this is the kind of guidance that can change the way you see your paintings.

I think Rita's white space has always been trying to tell us something. It is open, but not empty. It is strong, but not loud. It gives everything else room to breathe. That is how Rita teaches, too. She makes room for artists to become more fully themselves.

And that is a gift that lasts a lifetime.

Where in your art are you learning to protect the part of your vision that no one else can quite see yet?

Share your thoughts/story in the comments below!