Within the spring, Josephine “Foster” Mann approached her grandmother Alice Williams with a particular request: Would Williams, a famous post-impressionist painter, make a portrait of her, too?
Mann had already bought a $200 gown for it (a navy blue outfit with “huge” polka-dots, Williams says) and wished three particular items featured: her mom’s elephant sculpture, her great-grandmother’s watch and Williams’ artwork guide.
“I knew I wished symbols of the ladies who got here earlier than me and who constructed me,” Mann tells PEOPLE. The 23-year-old additionally thought it might be attention-grabbing to have her grandmother “seize” her at such a pivotal age.
After all Williams, 80, mentioned sure and documented a part of the method on her common TikTok, writing in one viral video in August that she wished to color her granddaughter “in order that after I’m gone she’ll all the time know how I noticed her.”
(And, Williams added in a caption, “she will inform her grandkids about me.”)
It has since garnered greater than 1.7 million views and 338,700 likes.
Williams says that she wished to do one thing particular for her granddaughter, regardless of how troublesome portraits could be. She spent two weeks engaged on the portrait, portray in three-hour intervals.
“It was an act of affection,” she says, “and I am so glad that she got here to me and requested me to do it.”
She has lengthy had a particular relationship with Mann, a self-described “digital nomad” who’s constructing her personal social media and Advertising and marketing Providers Platform. Actually, Williams is Mann’s first shopper.
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Beginning early this yr, Mann has helped Williams construct an excellent bigger viewers by way of TikTok. As alicewilliams.artist Williams has greater than 106,000 followers as she shares healthful slices of her life and portray profession from the comfortable little village of Ansouis within the South of France, the place she and her husband, Don, settled 12 years in the past.
Williams tells PEOPLE she was initially skeptical of TikTok, however as she and her granddaughter have harnessed the platform, “It makes me admire my life extra,” she says.
Williams grew up surrounded by artwork. Her mom, Josephine, was a pianist, and she or he shortly grew to become fond “of all issues impressionistic” — a extra subjective fashion of artwork that usually renders every day life in vivid colours and fewer literal textures: how issues really feel and never how they appear.
Born in Boston, Williams was raised within the South, the place she realized to be a portrait painter — a profession that now stretches 60 years.
However the craft proved to be troublesome. Williams spent 12 years as an expert portrait painter, which she mentioned introduced in a “fabulous” revenue, however finally determined she was not actually blissful.
“I used to be portray for different folks … and never for myself,” she says.
No extra: Williams, who can also be a grasp gardener, sells her work on-line and thru a community of galleries.
She and Mann are excited to see what they will accomplish collectively on TikTok, too. Mann is even planning to maneuver to France in January.
“It is only a enjoyable job with household,” says Mann, who desires to be “near” her grandparents. “So yeah, why not? We’re making an attempt it.”
She is raring to share her grandmother’s legacy with the world. Creating content material with Williams, she provides, has been a “enjoyable” method for the 2 to bond.
In the meantime, Williams tells PEOPLE she merely hopes her movies assist cross on her ardour for artwork. Her final objective is to make her followers blissful whereas having fun with having enjoyable along with her granddaughter.
“I do not consider my life as distinctive or particular, however evidently to different folks it’s,” she says. “And I’m simply so grateful that we selected this path.”