About

FRANCIE RICH:  for me painting is a form of self medication.  I like faces of people, dictators, dogs, cats. I dream in gold leaf and I draw directly on my phone.. take pictures from the TV and paint from them.  I paint and draw from obituaries and mug shots. Most recent work is uploaded to Instagram; https://www.instagram.com/francie_rich/

I am happily married to artist  John Hodge, and we both agree I got the better end of the deal.  We organize and lead European tours.  We think we are a very clever couple.  I allow him to be the little girl his mother wouldn’t let him be and he allows me to dig holes in the yard.  He cooks, I mow.

My exuberance and zest for life is matched only by my bountiful lethargy, ennui, and abundant capacity for run-on sentences. I married my father and John married his crazy Aunt Sadie. The four of us are tripping the light fantastic even though two of us are dead.

My work is a prime example, and the only example, of Hypo Slavic Realism.  The term Hypo-Slavic Realism was coined on 4 October 2008 by its founder and only known proponent, artist, Stanko Stribog (one of my alter-egos). Never ones to pander to the masses our work is non-denominational (meaning it offends all denominations) and has no political leanings to the right of left.  This stylistic period of art relies on gold leaf and models whose vocabulary does not include the words “self esteem”.  Our work has offended the very people that we have painted, including high society, royalty, homosexuals, babies, media personalities, relatives, friends, African Americans and African Africans, Caucasians,  Mexicans, and the dead.  We has been denounced and legally threatened.   That’s how we roll and the reason for us having the largest collection of our own art. 

Francie and John are featured in the July/August 2011 issue of Inside Northside Magazine. Click here to take a look.

I paint and give private art classes.  John makes pottery and teaches pottery.

  • BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, also studied at Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

  • MFA from California College of the Arts

  • Artist-in-Residence Fellowship Grant, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM

  • Services to the Field Grant, National Endowment for the Arts and the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans

  • Visual Arts Fellowship, Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts,Artist Fellowship, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC

  • Collections include:

  • New Orleans Museum of Art

  • Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans

  • Aquarium of the Americas, New Orleans, LA

  • Prudential Life Insurance, Newark, NJ

  • Ewing Gallery of Art, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

  • Laila and Thurston Twigg-Smith, Honolulu, HI

  • Frederick R. Weisman, Los Angeles, CA

  • AnnBarnett, New Orleans, LA

  • The Residency Collection, Gallery 409, Roswell, NM

  • Sheraton Hotel, New Orleans, LA

  • McGlinchey, Stafford, Minz, Cellini and Lang, New Orleans, LA

  • Ted Schachter, MGM-UA Telecommunications, Inc., Culver City, CA,

  • The Southern Hotel, Covington, LA

In memory of my sister Deborah Gail Rich, August 6, 1949- May 31, 2014

Deborah Rich deserves a cool obituary, because many facets of her life sucked.  Deb died of a massive heart attack in Berkeley, California.  Never on time in her, life she was out of here in short order.  She is survived by my sister Penny Galinson in Minneapolis and her family and well as my immediate family of John Hodge, , the Most Reverend Otis Omero Crawford and Sweet Tea Booger Johnson, of Covington, LA.   She leaves behind many relatives and many friends.  We are all sad she is no longer with us.

Deborah was born 6 months premature and only weighed 1 ounce at birth.  Penny would carry her around in her pocket.  Deborah was often covered in lint.  Penny’s heart hurt from so much love when Deborah was born, as it hurts now that she is gone.  Deborah had many talents, playing guitar, piano and writing music, singing, and helping others.  Through there were many obstacles Deb loved life and was a very social person.   She was also a worrier; she knew to start worrying when a hurricane entered the Gulf of Mexico and would beg Francie and John and the dogs to leave.  She knew about blizzards in the Midwest and would worry about Penny and her family. She had a difficult life and told Francie if she came back she hoped it wouldn’t be so hard.  She blamed no one.

 
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