On the Campaign Trail...

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I am a sculptor, filmmaker, and performance artist. I have spent over fifty years making things with my hands. I am not a career politician, a billionaire, or a lawyer. I am running for Governor because I believe California deserves leadership that knows how to build something from nothing, and because I am convinced that the absence of artists and creative thinkers in our government is not a minor oversight - it is a structural failure. 

Every candidate in this race comes from the same backgrounds: law, finance, law enforcement, or party politics. Not one of them has ever stood in a studio and solved a problem that had no precedent, no playbook, and no guarantee of success. That is what artists do every single day. California was built by people who saw possibility where others saw nothing, and it is time our government reflected that spirit again. 

The Case for Creative Leadership 

This is not an abstract idea. Research from Harvard University, the International City/County Management Association, and programs in cities like Boston, Minneapolis, Oakland, and New York has demonstrated that embedding artists in government leads to measurable improvements in civic engagement, policy innovation, and community trust. Artists bring creative problem-solving to challenges that bureaucratic thinking alone cannot crack. They make government systems more transparent, more human, and more responsive. 

History proves this is not idealism. Vaclav Havel, a playwright, led Czechoslovakia out of totalitarian rule and became one of the most admired democratic leaders of the twentieth century. Closer to home, Clint Eastwood served as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, bringing a practical, community-first approach to local governance. Artists understand how to listen, how to observe what others overlook, and how to imagine a future that does not yet exist. These are not luxuries in leadership - they are necessities. 

Who I Am 

I was born in New York City in 1947. I earned my BFA from the University of Pittsburgh and my MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1979, I received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. I have exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, the Washington Project for the Arts, and internationally in Tokyo, Cologne, and Paris. I have taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts. 

In 1986, an explosion and fire at Bayview Industrial Park in San Francisco destroyed my studio and killed nine people. I survived. I rebuilt. That experience taught me something no politicalcareer ever could: that resilience is not a talking point. It is a practice. It is the willingness to start again when everything you have built has been reduced to nothing. 

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I have lived in California since 1971. I have called Penngrove home for years. I am not running because I want power. I am running because I believe that the people who make things - who build, who imagine, who create - deserve a voice in the rooms where decisions are made about their future. 

The Write-In Choice 

Writing in a candidate is a deliberate act. It requires you to remember a name, to take an extra moment, to reject the options you have been given in favor of the one you believe in. I am asking for that moment. I am asking you to believe that California's next chapter should be written not by another politician, but by someone who has spent a lifetime making something meaningful out of raw material. 

Write in: Richard H. Alpert for Governor.