"Sleep Tight"

Here it is at last, Murphy # 5!

The collage "Sleep Tight" was monumental for me, as I needed it to say so much. Recently, I sold a Giclee print of it, and when the print came back from the framers, the invoice said KIDS IN BEDS.  That is really the core of the image I guess!

It is the memory of Frances who sits in the top bunk, planning what to do if someone should break in through the window in the middle of the night.  Her lifeline is the string she fastens to her brother Peter's toe.  Her plan is to pull the string and wake him up for protection.

The challenge for me was to see the collage as painting, and to depict the correct time of evening when the sun goes down and the streetlights come on.  The perspective had to be correct, but not overtly so. I wanted the viewer to feel as though they were at the door to the room, looking in, and Frances looking back.  She is the only one in the image who senses the viewer.

There is such a contrast here to our lives today.  How many children share a bed with a sibling? or two?  How many children of today even share a room?