Ricky Katowicz: Clowning Around in Providence

Providence artist Ricky Katowicz explores clowning’s outer limits with The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show and more.

Clowning is more than just wearing your heart on your sleeve. It is guts out, actual balls to the wall, raw vulnerability right there in your lap. Clowning is serious stuff, and it’s always messy. Providence artist Ricky Katowicz never self-identified as a clown, but this is the closest I can get to describing his practice. Puppeteers and noise musicians are a dime a dozen in Providence, RI but Katowicz’s performances push past the typical into a very real space of vulnerability. Katowicz’s projects, especially The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show, are something to be celebrated. The Show combines the formats of late night talk show and Saturday morning kids programming. “The idea for Ricky Rainbow Beard as a host came about in 2015 when I realized I needed to host a kids show because I’ve thought of this for too long and now I just need to do it,” says Katowicz “The show was conceived over the last four years but it only existed in my sketchbooks.”

While at an emotionally abusive weekend clown camp I learned that every person has an “inner clown” — you just had to turn yourself inside out to find it. Clowning is more than just wearing your heart on your sleeve. It’s guts out, actual balls to the wall, raw vulnerability right there in your lap. Clowning is serious stuff, and it’s always messy.

Providence artist Ricky Katowicz never self-identified as a clown, but this is the closest I can get to describing his practice. Puppeteers and noise musicians are a dime a dozen in Providence, but Katowicz’s performances push past the typical into a very real space of vulnerability. Katowicz’s projects, especially The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show are something to be celebrated. The show combines the formats of late night talk show and Saturday morning kids programming.

Video Still from Dance Sunday.

“The idea for Ricky Rainbow Beard as a host came about in 2015 when I realized I needed to host a kids’ show because I’ve thought of this for too long and now I just need to do it,” says Katowicz. “The show was conceived over the last four years, but it only existed in my sketchbooks.”

Making its first appearance at PVD Fest in 2016, The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show is advertised for children, but like other kids’ programs made by Gen-Xers (think Yo Gabba Gabba) Katowicz’s combination of gender bending cartoons and punny puppets often leaves grown-ass audience members wonderstruck. This is largely due to the host, Ricky Rainbow Beard, whose affect is not akin to the wide-eyed, maniacal, goon that talks slow and loud at the children of TV land. Rather, Rainbow Beard is deadpan but warm and seemingly a little shy when engaging his audience.

“I wanted to be a bearded host that could change the color of his beard on a whim because it contained all of the colors of the rainbow,” he says of his character. “The plan was always to have a magical segment on the show where I twisted my ear to cycle through all of the colors like a slot machine and land on something different each time.”

The genius of the show is that every part, the interviews with special guests, the introductions of cartoons, the strange interruptions from live-action characters—all of it—is inquiry-based. Rainbow Beard and crew never tell audience members how to feel. When asked about his promotion of curiosity Katowicz jokes, “When curiosity is based in personal desire, it can result in real learning, and other times curiosity leads you down a gutter with a murderous clown.”

Katowicz’s projects, like The Ricky Rainbow Beard Show or Domestique, a playful noise project where Katowicz uses “domestic appliances to create layers of sound,” are more than mere performances. They are Katowicz revealing a part of himself, flashing that “inner clown,” and Ricky’s clown, well, it’s a weird dude, and that’s okay. This is Ricky’s gift, along with his wonderfully crafted puppets, costumes, and cartoons; notable collaborations; his comedic timing and the pedagogical offerings of his special guests which are all equal parts inclusive and disarming.

Ricky Katowicz, Video Still from DOMESTIQUE resized

Smart and magical, Katowicz’s work invites viewers to step into silly worlds of inquiry and vulnerability. Ricky’s world is kids’ stuff; it’s open-hearted and unafraid. Ricky Katowicz is doing the imperative work of the artist in the current, ever-darkening political climate. He gives all of us permission to be truly ourselves and in doing so, he is giving us back our power.