Richard Mayhew is a painter, as well as a retired professor of art. He was born on Long Island, New York, and displayed an early interest in art. He studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the Art Students League of New York, the Pratt Institute, and Columbia University. Mayhew received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship in 1958 to live and study in Europe in the early 1960s. He was joined Spiral in 1963 and was a member of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC). Mayhew has taught at many universities and art institutions, including Hunter College, Pennsylvania State University, San José State University, Sonoma State University, and University of California Santa Cruz. In this interview, Mayhew discusses: growing up in New York; family and education; Native American and African American identities; artistic training, including time at the Art Students League of New York; early artwork and work as an illustrator; receiving a John Hay Whitney Fellowship and living in Europe; working as a ceramic decorator and meeting his first wife; working to create the Creative Center for Arts and Science; Spiral, including its civil rights history, artists, and exhibitions; discrimination in the art world; working with the Rockland Center for the Arts; teaching, including schools and introducing interdisciplinary work to students; exhibitions, including his three retrospective shows in 2009; his children; meeting his second wife; and relationships with other artists.