Family Portrait

Acrylic on Canvas, Painted by Rikki and Linda

When Bill and Warren Vernon were young boys, their father commissioned two local artists to paint a family portrait. Rikki and Linda, life partners who paint portraits together, asked the family sit for a full eight hours to do this portrait. They paint together because each of them only has one good eye, with the other being subject to glaucoma and near-sightedness. This explains the proportions in their work.

Some speculate that Bill and Warren's father was motivated to have the portrait done because of a recent accident with his self-built machinery, which took his arm. Being an inventor, he built the mechanical arm he is pictured with here on his own, constructing it from parts of other machines in his workshop.

Their mother, on the other hand, had a prolific painting career of her own, producing over six-hundred canvases in her lifetime, though her work was not discovered until the death of her husband. After her late success, she left their family home to her boys, and took up residency in Italy, where she lives today. Her own artwork continues to tour the world in museums and galleries. It is unclear why she did not paint their family portrait herself, though she has since admitted to having romantic relationships with both Rikki and Linda at some point, perhaps explaining their involvement.