The Grace of Cathleen

The Grace of Cathleen is a collaborative painting whose making brought Allen, Tommy, and Danny to work in succession on one canvas. Its later sale connected this intensely produced work of art to Billy’s effort to support a cause: he used part of the proceeds to open an account for the Foundation Against Child Abuse.

Design and Making

Adapted from an image in an art book, the painting was first conceived as a seventeenth-century aristocratic woman holding a mandolin. Each of the three contributors took a different part: Allen painted the woman’s face and hands, Tommy worked on the background, and Danny supplied the details.

The planned mandolin became the painting’s defining variation. When it was time to put the instrument in the woman’s hands, Danny realized he did not know how to paint one, so he painted a piece of sheet music instead. The three took turns working for forty-eight hours without stopping. When they finished, Milligan collapsed onto his bunk and slept.

Sale and Consequences

A little more than a month after his transfer to Athens Mental Health Center, Billy opened a bank account in the name of the Foundation Against Child Abuse and deposited a thousand dollars. The money came from a five-figure payment by a woman in Columbus who planned to open an art gallery and had come to buy the painting of the lady holding sheet music.

The account turned the sale into a concrete contribution to the cause named by the foundation. Billy then had a bumper sticker printed with the words HUG YOUR CHILD TODAY, extending that concern into a public message.

Significance

The painting’s history rests on a sequence of specific transformations: an image adapted from an art book became a collaborative work; a mandolin became sheet music; and the finished canvas became a source of funding. Its importance in the narrative lies not only in the sustained effort of its making, but in the use of its sale to support Billy’s child-abuse-prevention work.