When The Wizard of Oz hit screens in 1939, the country was in turmoil, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl behind it, the prospect of global war ahead. The land of Oz offered a reassuring symbol: a road of yellow bricks. It connects the country to the city; it leads to the Emerald City; and it leads Dorothy back home, to America's heartland. Bricks are safe, stable, reliable -- and these had the advantage of vibrant technicolor.

In 2021, as the nation struggled with another time of turmoil, a brick of a different color debuted: the NFT. Sotheby’s offered a sale of freshly-minted digital artworks, a series simply called “Pixels.” Made of the same blockchain wizardry that powers cryptocurrencies, you can’t build a road out of Pixels, and they come only in one shade of gray.

Jonathan Miller Spies Fine Art presents a group of works on paper meditating on the brick -- as a roadbed for dreams and nightmares, as a building material, and as a proxy for values like beauty, truth, and wakefulness. Artists include George Gibson, who worked on the sets of the 1939 movie, contemporary watercolorist Carrie Beckmann, and cross-media specialists in dreams and nightmares, Kieran O’Hare and Marissa Paternoster.

Like the diplomas and citations the Wizard gives out, all are suitable for framing.