BEHIND THE BRAND

Rick Horn graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970, majoring in painting and printmaking. He began his career screen printing for Cory Gallery in San Francisco, producing limited editions for artists including Cucaro and sculptor Benny Bufano.

He went on to establish his own print shop aboard a barge anchored in Richardson Bay, Sausalito — a vessel named Hayoka, meaning "little willow," in a quiet echo of Sausalito's own name, derived from the Spanish saucecito, or "little willow."

 

When Rick later relocated his studio to San Francisco's Civic Center, he kept the name. Hayoka Press remained at its Gough Street location for the next twenty years, producing limited-edition serigraphs for Vorpal Gallery and other clients, including artists Jesse Allen, John Barnes, Jack Hooper, and Stan Galli.

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For 25 years, Rick worked as a master artisan printmaker in serigraphy at Hayoka Press in San Francisco, printing and publishing fine art limited editions. During those same years, he worked as production manager for a shirt-printing company, where he first learned the mechanics of embroidery machines — a skill that would eventually reshape his practice entirely.

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In 1998, Rick returned to Florida and began working in embroidery. He ran a small embroidery shop at Alvin's Island for five years, then moved the business to Liz and Jane's. When that shop closed in 2017, Rick leased the space and continued the business himself. Today, he works out of Panhandle Embroidery, located at 15606 Front Beach Rd, Panama City Beach, FL 32413, where he continues to explore embroidery as a fine art printmaking medium — carrying the Hayoka Press name and legacy forward into a new material.

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Rick treats embroidery exactly as he once treated serigraphy: another form of fine art printmaking, thread in place of ink. Most of his machine embroidered fine art is drawn from his own landscape and abstract paintings, alongside custom embroidery work created from client photos.