William “Cricket” Ulrich grew up on a farm in southern Indiana, but later moved with his mother to Cincinnati. This abrupt relocation from rural to suburbia affected him in different ways. However, the move opened up a bright future for him. He received a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati which allowed him to study graphic design, and for him to take fine arts classes whenever possible.
After college, William had the opportunity to study life drawing and painting in Paris, France with Ben Long, an American realist painter. This experience allowed him to learn how to use ink and pen techniques. The exposure to various Parisian museums, sights, sounds and Ben Long’s influence led William to make the decision to pursue the Fine Arts field.
After Paris, it was hard to stay in Cincinnati, so, eventually, he moved to San Francisco in the fall of 1990. The years William has lived in San Francisco involved the complete restoration of an 1884 Victorian house in Hayes Valley. The renovation and conversion of a gutted crack house into a home and art studio was a transformative process for William. The acquired skills and materials used in this monumental labor of love have frequently found their way into William’s work. Recently, William has been experimenting with adding decorative wall stenciling to his collage work on panels, objects, and furniture. Decorative painting is now his newest passion. This new passion involves faux finishing furniture and creating murals for dining rooms.
William has been exploring how to sketch and draw the male figure extensively at Mark Chester’s Gay Men’s Sketch. It’s been a place to experiment with different medium, and recently, he started combining photos of his life with sketches creating digital collages. The images comes to him as he set about bringing them to life. Whether in oil, acrylic or watercolor, they evolve on their own sometimes with unexpected results.