I was visiting him in his studio one day, and while we were looking at his latest paintings and shooting the breeze, two things conspired to later give me the beginning idea for this story. The first was that he had just finished a painting for a Halloween show at a local gallery. The picture was sort of a takeoff on a work by an Early American painter, Charles Willson Peale, of a man ascending a staircase and looking back over his shoulder. Perhaps you’ve seen it; it’s very famous. What Barney did was create a similar figure, carrying a cane, also ascending a staircase. The difference was that only the figure’s head, gloves, socks, and shoes were rendered. Because of the manner in which he’d placed the figure, the green wallpaper behind seemed at first to be a green suit the man was wearing. On closer inspection, it was evident that the suit was an illusion and there was only the green wall. It was a very cool effect, and I laughed when I realized how my eyes had initially duped me.
