During dinner conversation, Richard was telling a friend about the story behind one of his paintings. The friend found the story very interesting and wondered aloud whether Richard had ever written any of them down. On his suggestion Richard began printing the stories on sheets with the writing tucked around a small picture of each painting. The sheets were enormously popular at the opening of his exhibition. Everyone who bought a painting wanted a copy of the accompanying story. When Kiry joined the Tiberius Studio she followed the tradition of writing a story for each painting.
People have told us that the stories helped them see features of the painting that they had overlooked. We experienced the value of context when we were in Madrid visiting El Prado. We engaged a tour guide for a second tour because we saw so much more in the art when the guide explained the context of the works. He not only explained the social and political context behind the subject of the painting, he also enlightened us about the perspectives and evolving techniques of the artists. We try to do the same with our stories. Each story contains comments on our perspective of the subject, our emotional response to it, a little biology, and often some notes about technique.