Richard Hartnell is a contact juggler, DJ, and voracious autodidact. When not performing on stage as a contact juggler, he often works with the circus as a sound technician. He started performing with the Dream Science Circus after completing a hitchhiking trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to study with several "great old masters" of contact juggling.

Richard spent his childhood in Bellingham, Washington, where a close-knit community and loving parents bestowed on him an inquiring mind and a love for living things. He personally dedicates his life to growth, study, and progress with the hope of applying gained insights and good intentions toward acts of healing. As DJ Velveteen, Richard has performed to packed dancefloors in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Black Rock City.

Other performers have described Richard's style of contact juggling as mystical, hypnotic, precocious, and inspiring. To Richard, art is a form of activism; his perspectives on creativity are inspired by the likes of Bill Hicks, Alan Watts, DJ Qbert, and Lorin Bassnectar. He juggles compulsively, rarely goes anywhere without at least one spherical object, and secretly hopes that he never runs out of new tricks to learn.