THE LITTLE PRINCE, or the only guy in New York's Times Square NOT interested in the Super Bowl...

SO, a week ago I see in the NY Times that a favorite book of mine, THE LITTLE PRINCE is being featured at the Morgan Library and Museum in NY.  The original manuscript and drawings!!!! I had to go right away.

To explain:  if you don't know it, THE LITTLE PRINCE is a book written by a French aviator who between active engagements in WW2 wrote and illustrated a book about: while fixing his plane, the pilot lost in the desert, he encounters a boy from a tiny planet, the Little Prince.  In their conversation, it comes up that adults are so quick to bury the imagination and delight that they had as children, too busy becoming grown up accountants and such...miserably denying the wonder and fun that was theirs when they were young...that without being irresponsible, adults have the wrong priorities.  Every person of every age can find their own take on the book's themes, but the biggest appeal to me is the question:  why is it that every child's imagination is squashed, lost, considered unimportant in the adult world?  I always look around at people and ask "maybe not everybody is as imaginative as me????" because I totally live in my own personal clouds all day and night.

The author himself was also a hero of mine:  a creative loner.  He had no real training as an artist but doodled all the time, as I do, developing his own sweet and naive style.  The exhibit has many of the drawings from the book.... the one that first took my breath away was when I came nose to nose with a page written in French with a pencil drawing of an elephant in a snake (see header) which I LOVE.  And here I was, one inch from it!  You could see he had erased the snake's head, and redrawn it a little shorter!

The exhibit helps you learn how closely the author's life was mirrored in the book:  a creative man who never wanted to grow up..and as the Little Prince dies in the end, or passes, shortly after the book was finished, the author returned to WW2 and was shot down over France....

I also went to the MOMA which has, as you see below, a FAVORITE painting of mine by Brice Marden...it is not the most amazing painting on earth, but it is a favorite of mine...are you surprised to hear that knowing the color and decoration in my work????

I took the bus down to Port Authority...which is on one side of Times Square...and went over to the museums, just the other side of Times Square...and the massive million strong Super Bowl party was in the middle...it is fun to brush past a massive party without having to be in it or join it...you can't imagine how much fun it was, what a great day :)

Above, Times Square, below me at MOMA with a painting I adore, surprise surprise!



Me, the NYPL and Fortitude the lion....


Morgan Museum is in an extraordinary building....