My painting of Billy Keane, owner of John B Keane’s pub and a total superstar! This was the first painting I did in Listowe1l
This is a continuation of the story from Day 2. Pretty much the moment we entered John B’s pub, we started meeting people. Olive knows everyone. Its that simple! Billy Keane (owner of John B’s) came in from the back and came over to meet us and say hello. In the conversation, I told him that my focus in my time there would be painting the people of Listowel and the surrounding areas. At this point he jumped up and went back to the back. Did I say something wrong?
Moments later he returned with a book that is the faces of Ireland. The entire book is nothing but interesting faces against black backgrounds. To back up here, Billy is a character. He has a presence that you can’t ignore. You will find out more about this in subsequent posts but he has a quick wit and is an excellent story teller.
As he was looking through the book, though, looking for particular faces he could tell a story about (he is also in the book, by the way), I saw him sort of go away for a moment. At this point, I did not know that his mother was gravely ill. His father, John B, and his mother, Mary Keane, had raised their family above the pub. Mary ran the pub while John B wrote and the kids all had their parts as well. The light coming in from the window cast a hard line on Billy and, when I painted this from the photo I took, I had the background of the pub fading to black as he thumbed through the book because, later on, I realized more fully how he and his family were well known faces of Ireland.
Finding out later how ill his mother was and how she had always told them to keep their ‘shop face’ on and continue business as usual no matter the circumstances, I realized how important it was to show the depth behind the colorful character. I loved the way this turned out. People who came into Olive’s gallery when it was up would either immediately recognize it as Billy or would talk about how he looks like his uncle or his father in my depiction.
Billy is continuing to run the pub with his shop face on until it becomes his regular face again and he is doing it with honor and humor just as I imagine his parents would like it.
As a side note, Billy gave me the book he was looking through. I love it!
exciraanddelira 