Marcia Previti: Mixing Form, Function, and Finery
Marcia Previti has immersed herself in intricately detailed spaces filled with harmonious sounds, striking objects, and serene scenery, much of it her own creation — fitting for a former architect who has taken up mixed-media sculpture, singing, and gardening in her retirement.
Ms. Previti, who lives in a house in Springs that she and her husband, Peter Gumpel, also an architect and a watercolor artist, designed themselves and had built in 1991, does it all with the goal of mixing form, function, and finery.
“To me, life is about as much beauty as you can bring into it,” she said recently.
To achieve that, Ms. Previti has traveled extensively, bringing back souvenirs such as urns, lanterns, ceramics, and light fixtures from places like India, Italy, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. She has made purposeful choices about space and symmetry in her home, which she describes as a postmodern bungalow, with quite a few do-it-yourself projects, such as an outdoor wrought-iron candle chandelier, needlepoint, a carved stairway newel post, and even self-customized Ikea furniture.
“A lot of our life is craft projects,” Ms. Previti said. “If we can’t find it, we’ve got to make it.”
And surrounding her house, she has tended several distinct garden rooms, done mostly without the help of landscaping professionals. They have been regularly featured on the Garden Conservancy’s public tours on the East End, the Old Stone Stroll, and others. For four out of the last five years, Ms. Previti and Mr. Gumpel have also opened their gardens as a venue for a benefit show featuring and supporting the Amanda Selwyn Dance Theater of New York City.
A walk-through of the gardens reveals sculpture upon sculpture by Ms. Previti, crafted from materials including wood, copper piping, lightbulbs, and tree branches both real and fabricated. Some are collaborations with Mr. Gumpel, who also counts woodworking among his talents, and all are about expressing the fun in art and “finding ways to put unexpected elements together in outdoor space, in ways that feel organic but are not,” Ms. Previti said.
For instance, her sculpture “Copse Reviver” comprises nine tall copper tubes, spaced equidistant in a square, rising from the ground straight as arrows but evolving into tree branches, all painted in cobalt. “It’s the architectural blossoming into the organic — the strict nature of the grid then loosening into life,” Ms. Previti said.
Her “Brain Storm,” “Cirripedia,” and “Cnidaria” series consist of lightbulbs, the pointed types, fixed together in round clusters using foam or metal. They rise on stands from the ground or reside on driftwood or attached to trees. Ms. Previti even used the medium last year to design a bra for the annual Reconstructed Bra Fashion Show and Auction that benefits Lucia’s Angels and the Coalition for Women’s Cancers at Southampton Hospital. “Brain Storm” was named for the genesis of the idea, while “Cnidaria” is the scientific name for the sea anemone, and “Cirripedia” is the scientific name for the barnacle. Photographs of her sculptures can be found on her website, marciapreviti.com.
“The vision came to me while I was remembering a series of mobiles I made in college using paired lightbulbs with the glass cracked off,” she explained. “Somehow that led me to using glass in a spherical format. . . . They are like sea creatures to me come alive in a non-sea environment.”
Ms. Previti is a member of the Choral Society of the Hamptons, for which she sings as a soprano. She is also a member of the Chickpeas, an all-girl singing ensemble, and performs on her own from time to time at coffeehouses and restaurants. The retired architect has released a solo album of blues and jazz, appropriately titled “Blues Prints,” with tracks including the Gershwins’ “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and the traditional folk song “St. James Infirmary Blues.” A second album is in the works.
Ms. Previti credits her parents with passing down their creative talents and nurturing her artistic instincts. She is the daughter of the late Marte Previti, a chemical engineer who was also a photographer and art dealer, and Elisabeth Carron, a well-known soprano particularly noted for her portrayal of the heroine of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”
But she never took a single singing lesson from her mother.
“She would offer lessons, but I always said no. I just couldn’t imagine competing with what she had,” said Ms. Previti, who takes lessons locally with Jane Hastay. “I sang in choruses, but I didn’t take a lesson until I was in my 50s, and even then, I did it secretly. That was in the city. I came out here and decided to branch out a little bit.”
She said she feels at home in the arts community on the East End, and feels a sense of “personal success and satisfaction.”
“I’m very appreciative when people like what they see,” she said. “I’m happy to do it for myself and for whoever wants to come share it with us. There’s no stress, all joy.”
Originally from New York City, Ms. Previti said she is fully enjoying life on the South Fork, which she and Mr. Gumpel have been visiting since 1981. They moved here full time last year.
“There are so many interesting people out here and so much to do it just amazes me,” she said. “Every day I wake up and think, ‘What of these things can I do today?’ It’s a very, very full and beautiful life.”