650 Stories: An interview with Nate Riley
San Bruno resident Nate Riley is settling nicely into his new community. A lifelong Bay Arean, the freelance interactive art director, visual designer, and illustrator is about to add another title to his resume – children’s book author. Riley sat down with us – in a children’s playground popular with his own young kids – to talk art, illustration, and discovering the tight-knit, old school vibe of his new San Mateo County digs. As we chatted, jets from nearby San Francisco International Airport heaved their way across the skies and dying leaves dropped from the park’s trees as the afternoon turned brisk. To Riley, sipping from a water bottle covered in pictures of his kids, we were sitting on a park bench in his own little slice of heaven.
Do you go by Nate or Nathan?
I go by Nate. The only person that calls me that is my mother. That's when I'm in trouble. And if she called me by my middle name, that's when I'm really in trouble.
What’s your middle name?
Andrew. If you heard “Nathan Andrew!” get out of the way.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Santa Rosa, California. It was just on fire this last month. In fact, the major part of the fire went through where I grew up. The fire started from Calistoga in Napa. At least, this is how I understand it. It started in the Calistoga area and came over that hill and dropped down into Santa Rosa. And then it jumped the freeway and went to Coffey Park and Coffey Park is like, the average middle class subdivision. Now it looks like Dresden. I knew a lot of people that grew up there when I was growing up there. But the area burned up. When some sort of disaster happens to someplace that’s very, very close to you, all of a sudden has a sort of real quality to it.
I'll have to go up there and kind of check it out. You know, these places are where I used to run around in and skip school and drink vodka and smoke cigars. Now it all burned down. (Pause.) So, Santa Rosa, California is my long-winded answer to your question.
Can you talk a little bit about what you do?
Mainly what I do is I piss off my girlfriend. Actually, I like to say that doing the thing that used to get me sent to the principal's office as a kid is what I do for a living now. And in that sense, I'm very lucky. I somehow turned scribbling and art and illustration into a career. And I've always been a lover of the power of how much story can be told in a single image. So, for example when I was a kid I would spend my money that I made buying copies of MAD magazine. I grew up loving the works of cartoonists like Bill Waterston and Calvin and Hobbes. Even though I didn't understand the political context of the cartoon, I loved the art. I loved the way it looked.
I would draw Jason Vorhees chain-sawing someone when I should have been doing my geometry class or finishing my test instead. I was getting kicked out of class for that kind of stuff. But that led to illustration and that naturally led to print advertising. When you look at print advertising, it has the power of how much can be told in a single image.
For the past few years I've done a lot of Web site mobile phone designs. I actually went to art school to study to be an animator. I found out that I have no patience - and animation is something that takes patience. I got bored quite quickly of sort of drawing the sequential imagery.
It sounds like a really diverse portfolio. What’s a good gig for you? What’s a fun assignment?
If I'm drawing something and I'm laughing while I'm drawing it, then that's when I know it's good. As far as my own personal satisfaction, if I'm giggling like a little seventh grader while drawing it - I know that for me, it's satisfying. You don't get that many opportunities to do that, especially with the larger clients.
Can you talk a little bit about what you do?
Mainly what I do is I piss off my girlfriend. Actually, I like to say that doing the thing that used to get me sent to the principal's office as a kid is what I do for a living now. And in that sense, I'm very lucky. I somehow turned scribbling and art and illustration into a career. And I've always been a lover of the power of how much story can be told in a single image. So, for example when I was a kid I would spend my money that I made buying copies of MAD magazine. I grew up loving the works of cartoonists like Bill Waterston and Calvin and Hobbes. Even though I didn't understand the political context of the cartoon, I loved the art. I loved the way it looked.
I would draw Jason Vorhees chain-sawing someone when I should have been doing my geometry class or finishing my test instead. I was getting kicked out of class for that kind of stuff. But that led to illustration and that naturally led to print advertising. When you look at print advertising, it has the power of how much can be told in a single image.
For the past few years I've done a lot of Web site mobile phone designs. I actually went to art school to study to be an animator. I found out that I have no patience - and animation is something that takes patience. I got bored quite quickly of sort of drawing the sequential imagery.
It sounds like a really diverse portfolio. What’s a good gig for you? What’s a fun assignment?
If I'm drawing something and I'm laughing while I'm drawing it, then that's when I know it's good. As far as my own personal satisfaction, if I'm giggling like a little seventh grader while drawing it - I know that for me, it's satisfying. You don't get that many opportunities to do that, especially with the larger clients.
And now, you’re working on a passion project – a children’s book.
I've always had an affinity for children's book illustration. Children's book illustration is one of the last forms of media that is still created with natural media. And when I say natural media, I mean pens and paints, watercolors, pastels.
Over the past few decades, everything has switched to digital. Everything is very clean art for commercial purposes. Everything has gone into the computer. Our lives have gone into the computer in the past 15 years. Most media has followed that trend. But one of the last holdouts is children's book illustration and I believe it's because there's something about watercolors and pastels that have a very childlike quality to it that just can't be reproduced digitally.
I have two young children. I have one older child who is in his 20s. And I have two young children and sitting down with them and reading with them at night and getting the books out again - it's almost like I rediscovered that love for that art. I feel it went away for a long time, it disappeared for a long time.
The concept for the book I'm working on right now literally fell out of the sky. One day when I was dressing my four year old for school – and if you've ever tried to dress a toddler for school it's like dressing a bag of Jell-O with epilepsy – and he said something while I was dressing him that had to do with his perspective on the world. Suddenly, the whole book literally fell into my head. It was like the whole concept was there.
Having a child - having MY child - I almost feel like it woke up something in me.
You grew up in Santa Rosa, you spent 20 years in San Francisco, and now you’re living – and raising a family – in San Bruno. Why’d you leave the City?
The stories you've heard about San Francisco are true. It's gotten so expensive that it's become unmanageable. And when my son Declan came along two years ago, we’d been living in a condo just across from the famous rainbow cross-walk on 18th and Castro. It was great! But that's a really lively neighborhood and we'd find ourselves leaving town to go on vacation every time there was either Pride event or Halloween or something where our neighborhood was going to get taken over by hundreds of thousands of people. When our second child came along, it was like, ‘OK we've got to get something bigger.’ And we looked for a year trying to buy in San Francisco.
Between what was available and competition for homes, it became impossible. So we looked south to San Bruno. I feel like it's one of the last areas left that was affordable. Apple and Google have reached their monstrous hands up from Silicon Valley and San Francisco reaches its monstrous hands down. They’ve made it so the last little holdout between the City and Silicon Valley was San Bruno - and we were able to buy.
We’re conducting this interview in Commodore Park, and it feels so family-centric here. With this children’s book, are there opportunities for you, as a member of the community, to share this book locally? Do you think you're going to work with area bookstores or Peninsula libraries?
Oh, I think so, yeah! I actually hope to do something with my son’s pre-K. They go to this cute little school called Happy Hall down here in San Bruno, and I'd love to actually just run the book by their teachers first. I've already done some stuff over there for them anyway, just little art projects with the kids. I'm hoping to get involved in my kids’ school from an artistic standpoint.
I really enjoy this community. I've met a lot of dads around here, a lot of people that grew up around here. And they just love it.
