At the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007, I began to think about how it is possible to have an “innocently” destructive lifestyle. I made a series of paintings about the change from excess to execution in the life of Marie Antoinette (1755-93). Its about not creating cartoon villains (scapegoats) but also seeing the downside of participating innocently in “trends” that will lead to no good, thinking about how much wealth has been squandered on excess in the US. The pieces in this group explored Marie Antoinette’s feelings from her introduction to the French Court, her oafish arranged-marriage husband, her struggle to fulfill her obligation to bear children with a disinterested husband, her brief moment of fitting in and making her milkmaid fantasy, a fugue as things fell apart and the final stark period facing death, age 38. The pieces use 3 types of rhythm: 1755-93 (a continuous unfolding) , 1789 ( staccato repetition in color, form, size and technique) and 1782 (a square of relative stability).