Gone!

Gone! is a tribute to the beautiful ballpark and setting that is the home of the San Francisco Giants. The park opened in 2000 and I painted this in 2002 after touring the offices of The New Yorker magazine. I was visiting from my native San Francisco when the esteemed baseball writer and New Yorker editor Roger Angell called me into his office. He was enamored with this new ballpark and asked me to paint something and then he would write a story about it. Talk about dreams coming true! Armed with a press pass and video camera, I toured the park and decided that a painting set from right field would provide an excellent view of the park's eccentricities, like the giant coke bottle slide and worn leather glove, as well as a slight view of the Bay Bridge. But once I started sketching I realized that the dimensions of the magazine meant my composition would be too horizontal for the two-page spread I had to fill. That's when I decided to include the surrounding environs—the bridge, Trea