An original large scale acrylic on canvas painting by Kip Frace titled "Lady Godiva", depicting a surreal scene in a garden where a naked pregnant woman is riding a naked bearded man, as if he was a horse. Needs Stretching. Kip Frace was born in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1970 and lived there with his mother on Elizabeth Avenue in a house with 15 lamps, 6 clocks, 4 mirrors, and 2 hot-and-cold running faucets. “I traced a lot,” says Kip. “Everybody would say ‘You’re cheating, you’re cheating!’ but that’s totally how I learned to draw.” Kip’s drawing eventually turned into graffiti, a form of art (or vandalism, depending on what’s in your headphones) that “really opened me up to experiment.” As time went on, more and more of that experimentation was done outside what Kip referred to as the “drug-dealer training ground” of Easton, amidst the breakdancing and noise of New York City. Eventually, New York replaced — and perhaps even became — school. Hanging out in New York and tagging up trains was part of Kip’s artistic development. School was not, and so gallery owners impressed with art-school credentials were not. In some ways, that made life more difficult for Kip when, in 1987, he moved to the city full-time. “I wanted to pay my rent by drawing graffiti,” he says. During this time, Kip’s graffiti turned into full-on painting. Lacking a gallery and alumni, he was left to sell his work on his own, which he did with no small amount of success. Soon, happily, he was earning enough cash to find hard times. Surviving the kinds of trouble money can buy cost him a momentary loss of focus, in business and other things, but it also likely contributed to Kip’s art. Just how it contributed is for the artist to consider, but Kip has a broad sense of what constitutes a recordable moment, and his paintings are definitely his own. “When I finish a painting I can tell it’s mine. A lot of people can,” he says.