Artist statement/ Finding Bob art show description:

My name is Frank Page.  I am a cartoonist.

Cartooning first attracted me because it’s accessible – complicated concepts were made simple through strategically rendered lines…they made me think, act and react…most importantly, they made me laugh.  The walls it graced weren’t just in galleries and museums, but behind water coolers, on lunchroom bulletin boards and affixed with magnets to refrigerator doors.

Finding Bob contains the latest snapshots from a 14-year long journey.  Bob is Bob the Squirrel… the main character in my comic strip of the same name.  Finding Bob is a bit misleading – one would think that after almost a third of my life with him, I’d have found him by now.  Where else would he be but where I put him?

Finding Bob is nothing more than an extension of the comic strip. I’m telling a story with pictures and words… just on a bigger scale. I limited myself to using only black ink, white canvas and panel and one color.  I limited myself to spark creativity.  I limited myself to get me thinking on my feet.  I limited myself to challenge myself.  The limitations forced me to change my thinking and led me to creating something new.

When I started this show, I was scared.  There was a great unknown in front of me:  where do I begin?  Fear is an excellent motivational tool. Slowly, one piece led to another and another.  Just as I finished one (or even while I was working on one) another would pop into my head.  I finish three, I start five.  Even up to the writing of this statement, I didn’t want to stop creating.  Fear was replaced by excitement.  When that happens, it’s a beautiful thing.

I think a cartoonist strives to find that one character that keeps him/herself motivated.  Bob the Squirrel is my friend, my enemy, my partner-in-crime.  He’s a bunch of lines that I’ve given life to.  He’s always there, yet surprises me when I least expect it and when I desperately need it.

I may have found Bob in Finding Bob.  But, he’ll take off and make me try and find him again.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.