Jimmy Buffett portrait sale to benefit 6-year-old cancer patient

When Northshore residents Adele and Mark Foster heard that singer Jimmy Buffett had died on Sept. 1, they felt a wave of shock mixed with sunny memories. The Mississippi-born pop maestro was Mark’s favorite. So much so  that back in 2012, the couple paid $16,000 for a dreamy oil portrait of Buffett that they spotted in a Mandeville art gallery.

Despite the nostalgia, Adele also saw Buffett’s death as an opportunity. The Fosters were trying to raise money for a very good cause, one that was terribly close to home. Maybe, they  thought, they could sell the painting while Buffett’s passing was still on the minds of millions of parrot heads — the nickname for Buffett fans.

The couple’s  6-year-old granddaughter, Marguerite, had a tumor in the base of her brain, and the drugs necessary to fight the unusual, unpronounceable illness were running about $8,000 every three months. Plus, there was the $20,000 that Marguerite’s mom and dad had spent staying in Seattle while their daughter was a patient there, undergoing an experimental treatment.

The Fosters are hoping the painting of Jimmy will help cover Marguerite’s medical costs — which seems like just the sort of thing the man who composed “Margaritaville” would be happy to do.

A newsman turned artist

Practically everybody in New Orleans will recognize the painting of Buffett that the Fosters are putting up for auction. It was the basis of the 2011 Jazz and Heritage Festival poster, which was printed by the thousands.

And lots of New Orleanians will recognize the artist too. Garland Robinette was the suave television news anchor on Channel 4 for 20 years, starting in 1970. Later, as a talk-show host on WWL radio, Robinette was the compassionate champion of listeners struggling through the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Adele remembers his sometimes-fiery broadcasts very fondly.

In his painting, Robinette rendered a youthful, long-haired Buffett in the years before he became an icon, when he strummed his guitar and crooned on French Quarter corners for spare change. A scarlet macaw takes flight from his shoulder.

There’s a breeziness about Buffett’s music that Robinette captured perfectly with his feathery brushwork. Speaking about the tone of Buffett’s songwriting, Robinette said, simply, “He wrote about joy.”

If you look closely at the painting, titled “Busking Out: Becoming Jimmy Buffett,” you’ll find a second, much smaller portrait of Buffett, as a middle-aged man, glancing over his shoulder at his 20-something self. That nod to the passing of time seems more poignant in the wake of Buffett’s death. You could rename the wistful canvas “Jimmy in Paradise.”

Robinette said it’s strange that the painting has resurfaced. It’s painful, he said, “when I think about this child facing death.”

But, he said, “There’s some kind of magic in art.”  Cave men fighting for their lives still found the time to paint the cave walls, he pointed out, despite the fact that their art didn’t help feed them or keep them warm.

It sounded like Robinette, who is 80, may have been summoning that magic when he added that “sometimes art exceeds what you intended, whatever your expectations were.”

“If they make some money from this, and if Marguerite gets well, I can go to my end very happy,” he said.

The sky's the limit

Mark Foster, a retired computer engineer, drove the painting all the way from Mandeville to Dallas, where the auction will take place on Nov. 18-20. The Buffett portrait will be among other examples of rock memorabilia, including art and other items from Jerry Garcia’s personal collection.

Heritage Auction’s director of business development Nancy Valentino said the opening bid will probably be something like $8,000. Where the price goes from there is anybody’s guess. It only takes two potential buyers to make it a successful auction, she said. “We hope it sells for … the sky’s the limit,” she said.

Now and then, Valentino said, when you work at an auction house, you can do good. “The family loves this painting, but they love their little girl more,” she said.

Valentino said she hopes the painting ends up back to New Orleans, where Buffett used to busk and where the Jazz Fest takes place. She believes it belongs there. Adele, a former middle school history teacher, agrees. “We love him, because he loved New Orleans,” she said of Buffett.

Marguerite’s mother, Laurel Chenier, said she’s not surprised her parents are parting with Jimmy. Not at all.

“It’s wonderful,” she said. But of course they did it. "These are Marguerite’s grandparents, and there’s nothing they wouldn’t do.”

An orphan disease

The sort of cancer that Marguerite has — diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) — only afflicts about 250 kids each year. While it's fortunate that the illness is rare, the fewer patients, the less doctors know about the disease, and the less research is conducted by the medical establishment and pharmaceutical industry, Chenier said.

Insurance has helped a lot with some of the medical bills, she said, but myriad other expenses have piled up. The Cheniers are now considering treatments for Marguerite not available in the United States, despite the $140,000 price tag.

Laurel Chenier, a social worker, hopes Marguerite’s situation and the sale of the painting of the beloved Jimmy Buffett – who died of a rare skin cancer – will help increase awareness of DIPG and other so-called orphan diseases.

In general, the prognosis for DIPG patients isn’t good. The cancer is impairing Marguerite’s ability to walk, talk and swallow, yet her mother said that, at present, things are pretty good. “We’re hoping she’ll beat the odds,” Laurel Chenier said, “but we don’t want to say it too loud.”