Gatsby Collection
During 2018, I fell in love — again — with the world of Jay Gatsby and the language and imagery of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The works in this gallery express the gorgeous, glamorous, and glittering world that seeks something more, something deeper, something meaningful.
Frosted Wedding Cake Ceiling
As Nick entered Daisy’s mansion for the first time, he noticed the breeze blow the pale curtains “up towards the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling.” That picture has stayed in my imagination since i first read it when I was 15 years old and living in the East Egg of The Great Gatsby and looking for my own green light on a dock in the sound. A picture of hope and dreams and a chance of rain.
72” x 60” mixed media on canvas.
NEW GATSBY
Following the sale of For Gatsby, I felt the need to create another large piece celebrating the parties, the glitter, the glamour and the ever-illusive green light.
60" x 72" mixed media on canvas.
Enchanted Objects in the Night Sky
Maybe they’re truly enchanted or maybe they’re just a reflection of my desires. In this moment, I believe in them.
48” x 36” mixed media on canvas.
"Shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids...
…in coral and apple-green and lavender…” (The Great Gatsby) This is a portrait of that scene where Gatsby finally sees Daisy after so many years and throws down his gorgeous, hand-made shirts with such hope that he can win her heart with those shirts. A lifetime of longing and self-creation are tossed into the air with those “shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray.”
36" x 24" mixed media on wood panel.
"The air is alive with chatter and laughter...
...and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot." I've been to those parties and wondered at the old money elegance and the new money needed to maintain it, and the people who come and make the parties beautiful and exciting then leave and never think of who will clean up the mess. And sometimes I'm one of them.
36" x 24" mixed media on wood panel.
On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera...
...stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel." (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night) Notable and fashionable people come there to chat and laugh and have expensive parties. They tell each other stories about themselves and try to find out who they are.
36" x 24" mixed media on wood panel.
MARSEILLES DIPTYCH
Inspired by the early chapters of Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the fashionable, notable people who gather to party and mingle on the warm beaches near Marseilles seem to define wealth, glamour and the good life -- at least for a moment. Until we look closer. Yet those gorgeous moments still remain like a bell that cannot be unrung.
Diptych on canvas. 24" x 36"
Sunday Under Beach Umbrellas
It’s Sunday and hot and the ocean is turquoise and blue and the colors shimmer. Bits of conversations float by, just a phrase or a feeling. Tomorrow is Monday, but today is for the waves and the wonder.
48” x 36” mixed media on canvas.
SOLD
Tender is Marseilles
Another piece inspired by the gorgeous opening chapters of Tender is the Night. You can almost feel the French sun warming the beach as fashionable and notable people sip drinks and splash in the water off the coast near Marseilles. The beach umbrellas, the palms swaying, the preparations for the night time parties. It's where everyone wants to be, until they don't.
36" x 24" mixed media on wood panel.
Whispered Conversations Under Beach Umbrellas
This is what they do in Marseilles and on all the beaches where people gather to see and be seen, to wonder and speculate and gossip under the hot sun and the salt air, protected only by their many colored beach umbrellas .
60" x 72," mixed media on stretched canvas.
Diminished by One
Sometimes those luscious fantasies, like Gatsby’s green light, are so much better in imagination. When Gatsby is finally re-united with Daisy, “The colossal significance of the green light had vanished forever…His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”
36” x 48” mixed media on canvas.
SOLD
Possibly Enchanted Objects
The danger of enchanted objects is that they exist so beautifully in our minds. Perhaps no real person or experience can every live up to the magnificence of imagination. And yet, imagination makes us human.
36” x 48” mixed media on canvas.
French Windows and a Wedding Cake Ceiling
Oh that luscious, gorgeous decadent affluence. I want to hate it, but it’s just so richly beautiful. I don’t even want to have it, just breathe it in for a little while. The cost of having it is too high.
40” x 42” mixed media on canvas.
Enchanted Objects
I just love the idea of enchanted objects, be they people, places or things. Our own desires imbue them with a special shimmer. It’s a double edged sword. That shimmer makes life vibrate at a higher level, and yet, we can’t live totally in imagination without sacrificing the deeper, truer more satisfying gifts of the humble earth.
48” x 36” mixed media on canvas.