BEHIND THE SCENES WITH DIANE KEATON
From Pittsburg Magazine
Published in August '03
Thanx to Marina

At the sight of a down's red, bulbous, nose, big floppy shoes and exaggerated grin, the child in me quivers—and not with joy. lt seems I may be one of those unlucky coulrophobics who would rather throw away my Manolo Blahniks than be present at the Andy Warhol Museum on Aug. 24, when actress Diane Keaton and art dealer Robert Bennan premiere a joint collection oj clown paintings.
But there are many, I realise, to whom the smile of a clown signifies nothing more dreadful than hijinks and fun—and on their behalf, I sat down with Diane to hear her thoughts on the exhibit.  

How did your first clown find you?
At the Pasadena Rose Bowl Swap Meet. I was with my sister Dori—we saw this clown painting and thought. "That's really interesting, and isn't- it strange how fetching and appealing and beautiful it is...."

Do the paintings ever scare you?
No, it's never scary. It's just remarkable. What amazes me is these anonymous artists out there.
I'm moved by people's pursuit of expressing their imagination: I just love it, and I just love the clowns, and sometimes I think they're really sad.

As a comedian, do you feel empathy or sympathy for the clown?
I feel a big sympathy—basically, I feel closely associated with the clown. I think anyone in the entertainment field kind of does. Not that I really am a clown, exactly, [but] underneath it-all you sort of feel the humiliation that clowns feel all the time

Have you ever tried putting on clown makeup yourself, just to see how it feels?
No, I haven't gone that far. I'm still a little sane.

You've edited four books of photographs, and you've created a book around this exhibit. If you weren't an actor, are these the talents that would take over?
I really feel what I would like to be... is an urban archaeologist- Keep moving around and finding things, discovering what's out there... I'd like to be a curator.

What else do you collect?
I'm deeply interested in scrapbooks and photo albums. I also collect Monterey furniture and Hillside pottery—concrete vases and urns that were sold on the side of the road in Southern California in the 1920s- They had very interesting kinds of tile inserts that are wrapped around in different patterns; they're stunning.

You've visited Pittsburgh before, right?
I love Pittsburgh How weird is this: The movie Mrs. Soffel was shot in Pittsburgh—at that incredible old jail. I just found out Andy Warhol did black-and-white sketches of me in costume as Mrs. Soffel. I had no idea.

What do you hope Warhol Museum visitors will get out of your clown exhibit?
I hope they just cannot believe the impact and how colorful everything is, and how imaginative, and why people would actually think up these ideas—"Why that makeup?" or "Why so fat?" They're cliches, but they're not. There is something more touching and personal about these paintings because they're not done by professionals—at least for me. They're enormously appealing to me because of the people who painted them