My paintings can take years of preparation and I’ve been pondering this one for over two decades.  Still life painting was not commonly practiced until the 17th century. Often considered the beginning of art for art’s sake, this new subject matter was without an overt political or religious agenda. Although it became very fashionable and much admired in the 1600s, this type of painting was considered little more than decoration and consequently occupied the lowest branch of the fine arts in aristocratic and intellectual circles.  Pierre Chardin and Paul Cézanne changed that forever, and connoisseurs today acknowledge that a good painting has a value separate from the subject it depicts. 

What I  have tried to capture in La Dolce Vita (“the sweet life”) is the original delight of those artists so long ago when they realized their final triumph over the third dimension in their paintings - it was magic to their audiences then, and is still magic to me now.