Holly Lane Works Biography

Fortuna's First Assignment
2013, Acrylic and Carved Wood, 28 1/2 x 11 7/8 x 5 1/4" For the ancient Romans the goddess Fortuna controlled chance, opportunity, luck, destiny and fortune with apparent randomness.  Fortuna would raise one to heights of prosperity and fame only to crush the same, or others in ruinous disaster.  In the Middle Ages Fortuna is shown turning a giant wheel of fortune, with a giddy person on the top and a shocked person below being crushed. I've pondered why Fortuna was unpredictable and capricious and determined it must be due to an early career disappointment. This work follows up on a Fortuna piece I made in the summer of 2000, "Fortuna's Early Formative Years in the South of France".  But now its a few years later after her vacation, when she has her first job...to distribute golden keys of opportunity and crowns of glory.  She sits in an open field, the wind blowing her hair, yet no one has come. The shelf like form in front, under the painting is derived from a bank tellers' window shelf where people lean in expectantly for transactions.  The two blue slanted side bars that bracket the painting are the color of the zenith of the sky and represents the vast unknown.  The top form is a vessel with a lid suggesting something stored.