Touched by others – Richard Stout creates

Richard W. Stout shows the walnut desk and jewelry boxes he made along with the wooden sculpture of Robin Hood at his home in Cape Girardeau.

Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian

Ask Richard Stout about his life, and he will tell you about other people.  He will recall his mother, who first taught him about faith by showing him the cross-shaped electric poles in the cornfield behind Stout’s childhood home. He will tell about Ed Hanna of Hanna Sign Company in Cairo, Ill., who took a chance on him when he was in high school by signing Stout onto his payroll through an apprenticeship.  Most importantly, Stout will point to Maggie, his wife of 45 years, whom he says is “half of what gets done here, because in some way or a lot of ways, it’s always teamwork.”

A highly accomplished artist and carpenter, Stout credits his abilities to the people who have been influential in his life along the way. “You don’t get through this life without being helped by other people and taught things,” he says. “You might take the credit for stuff, but everybody had to learn somewhere.”

Richard W. Stout works on a wooden mallet in his workshop.

Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian

Stout’s work has been part of the fabric of the Cape Girardeau community since the 1970s, when he moved to the area to study art at Southeast Missouri State University. He helped lay out and paint the original river wall in Cape Girardeau in the 1990s. He also painted the backdrops of Hutson Furniture’s Christmas window displays for over 10 years.  This Christmas season, his artwork – an open Bible featuring Scripture, which he painted for Bethany Baptist Church where he attends – can be seen in the Cape Girardeau County Park’s light display.

Stout’s prolific talent is evidenced throughout he and Maggie’s home – a swing on their porch, Maggie’s desk pushed into the corner of their dining room, nightstands on either side of their bed.  Cedar chests, rocking chairs and a bed headboard Stout made provide function and beauty throughout the rooms.  Much of the wood he uses he inherited from a friend at church, who, before passing away, made old-time musical instruments at Silver Dollar City.  

“Don’t mind the dirt,” Stout says, walking down the stairs to his basement studio. An in-progress oil painting of his eighth grandmother who came to New Jersey from the Netherlands and founded the first Baptist church is on one wall; with sawhorses Stout has made standing on a table – also made by Stout – opposite it.     

This white-oak jewelry box was built by Richard W. Stout.

Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian

He leads the way to the shed that functions as his workshop, which he calls his “little hole in the wall.”  It contains 70-year-old machines Stout still uses that were his father’s, who was also a woodworker.  Stout can be found in his workshop most days working on current projects with a pot of hot coffee, listening to preachers as well as rock ‘n roll and pop classics on the radio – music which is, as Maggie points out, “The things we used to skate to” when they first met and fell in love at a skating rink in high school.

“I’ve always been around wood,” Stout says, referencing watching his father create carpentry projects as a child.  “It was always sawdust and lumber in the garage.”  

Stout first began learning how to paint signs in 1968 when his high school art teacher, Mr. Malcolm Beck, noticed Stout’s artistic talent and suggested he apprentice at Hanna Sign Company for half the school day, a program in which he earned both grades and money.  While with this company, the journeyman sign painter whom Stout apprenticed under bought him a set of oil paints, teaching him how to mix colors and use the paints. From this experience, Stout found the passion to which he’s dedicated most of his life. “I’ve been a sign painter my whole life, even when I was doing other things,” he says.

Upon his graduation from high school in 1970, he enlisted in the armed forces for the Vietnam War, where he served from 1970-1971 with an assault helicopter company.  Every night, he fixed the parts on each chopper that had been damaged, so they could fly again the next day.

During this time of his life, too, Stout speaks of other people’s significance, particularly of an American officer who appeared and saved his life.  During an attack, the man told Stout, “You, follow me.”  The explosions in the area would have taken Stout’s life had he not obeyed the officer’s orders to walk in the opposite direction.  When Stout turned back around from watching the explosions, the man had disappeared, so Stout never got to thank him.

After returning from Vietnam, Stout and Maggie married and he again worked for a few years with Ed Hanna until moving to Cape Girardeau to attend SEMO and work at General Signs.

“I was the old guy in class,” Stout jokes about his time in college.

The Stouts then started their own painting business, which they operated for a number of years, painting billboards and race cars, and doing odd jobs that came their way.  Stout took his “dream job” as an engraver at American Greetings for five years, and then began painting for he and Maggie’s own business again.

A man from the Stouts’ church played a hand in the couple’s next endeavor, when he suggested teaching Stout to drive a tractor-trailer truck.  Stout agreed, and spent the next 15 years until his retirement traveling the country, driving over the road, four of which he drove with Maggie after she also acquired her CDL.

In addition to faith and teamwork, this lifelong learning has been a theme of the Stouts’ lives.  Maggie is earning a degree in Business Administration at Metro Business College, which has given Stout the opportunity to learn how to cook while Maggie studies.

Stout hopes that through his work people “can see God’s beauty in something,” he says.  With this hope, he always maintains a humble attitude. “I try to make stuff and do enjoyable things and incorporate artwork with it and you know, try to make it a special piece worth having.  Sometimes I’m successful sometimes I’m not, but it’s fun.”