Fox 10’s Kari Lake spotlights a Phoenix artist
Kari Lake, a news anchor for Fox 10, began broadcasting from her home recently, one of the many people working at home during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Her husband owns a video production company, so Lake’s got a pretty swank setup, complete with a background that is a painting of the Grand Canyon.
Imagine Randy Slack’s delight when he saw it.
It’s his painting.
“I love it!” The ever-effervescent Slack, a Phoenix-based artist, said of Lake using his painting. “It’s pretty hilarious. She actually texted me and asked if it was OK. It was pretty funny. I think she knew the answer.”
The story behind the Randy Slack painting
Spoiler alert: Slack said yes. Lake posted a picture of herself in front of it on her Instagram account Monday. (Slack did the same Tuesday.)
Slack and Lake, who was off the air for a week last year after uttering the Fword and disparaging Phoenix New Times during a Facebook Live event that started too early, have known each other and admired each other’s work for a while, he said.
“My studio kind of faces the Fox (10) building,” Slack said. “We used to always laugh that we were just working together but apart.”
So they collaborated.
“Last year she wanted me to do something for her,” Slack said. “I’d been doing these Grand Canyon kind of paint-by-number paintings. She seemed to dig it.”
Enough so that she commissioned
one. It came in handy.
“So we pulled the massive SLackR painting that I commissioned last year from artist extraordinaire Randy Slack off the living room wall and propped it up behind me,” Lake told The Arizona Republic by email. “Voila! Looked amazing.”
Slack agreed.
‘When I saw the setup, I was mind-blown’
“I was completely shocked and surprised and in awe . ... When I saw the setup, I was mind-blown,” he said.
The painting works for this because it does indeed resemble the sorts of backgrounds newscasts often use. But both Slack and Lake find the choice more meaningful, as well.
“The funny thing is, the first Grand Canyon painting I did, the whole point was, I do such large-scale works everybody likes to take their picture in front of my paintings, so they become like part of the work,” Slack said.
“It’s kind of funny that she’s using it in this sense. She’s using it for exactly what it was meant for. It’s great. I’m super happy. We’re going to turn a negative into a positive.”
That’s the idea, Lake said.
“I felt it was a perfect background for this time,” she said. “The Grand Canyon has withstood a few storms in it’s 5-6 million years in existence. A good reminder that we will get through this and that even in the midst of difficulty, beauty is all around.”
Sometimes right over your shoulder.