When I paint these large babies i'm thinking of Archetypes. For Frances I was thinking about the the Trickster. For me the very best of Comedians are tricksters, they take you someplace you may not have gone on your own using comedy. Robin Williams was a master of that. When I painted this I started with an image of a child. A caught moment when a child looks at you and you feel the adult looking back. It is these moments frozen in time that I pick to start these paintings. I then pick two adults that I think hold this archetype. For this painting I picked a now passed friend Ann Varnado. She was a trickster if I ever met one. She could talk to anyone about anything. Without ever seeing it coming she could sway you ever so gently and wake you up to yourself. Then a very slight smile would sneak onto her face, because she knew what had just happened. You never felt threatened in any way only awaken. To me this was exactly what Mr Williams did, only using Comedy. He would invite you into his world, take you on a trip all the while pointing at things you needed to see, while making you laugh and then slide you right out again with that same knowing smile that Ann had, only his was tinged with sadness. It is these three images I used to create Frances. I rarely tell people these creation stories but I feel at such a loss right now. We so need Tricksters in our lives without them we move around blindly thinking we see the world.
