Category: Personal

Well, lo and behold,, I received an email from the teacher in the previous story about the students at MOMA, he wanted to thank me for the story. I had wondered how he found it since his name wasn’t published in the story and he told me that someone at MOMA saw the story and sent it to him.

His name is Sebastian Alappat and he told me this is a special program called SPARK. “My goal as the founder of SPARK is to cultivate and foster that creative fire in kids, if they are artists or not. By introducing the elements to them, you never know what they might be inspired to do. The Museum of Art immersion was two days, two museums and the results were amazing,” he said.

You can learn more about SPARK at www.thespark.nyc .

I put the Christmas tree up yesterday. I know it’s mid-November, but I’m leaving town for a bit and wanted it to be up and ready when I return in December. It’s sort of like early voting, takes the pressure off!

I love the Spidey ornament. I think I won this in this dumb game we play every year. People buy an ornament, wrap it and place it on the table, then after drawing straws or something, people choose the wrapped ornament that they would like. People can then steal from them when it’s there turn and therein lies the rub. I think the ornaments should stay wrapped, so you are gambling when you choose the ornament from someone, it’s like door number 1, 2 or 3. But we unwrap the ornament when we choose it and everyone then knows what it is, so there is a lot of stealing going on. It sort of makes it best to be the last one chosen since you then have access to any ornament you would like simply by stealing it.

I usually get something good. One year I got an Elvis ornament, another year a nice Snoopy ornament and I think last year it was a small record player.

I visited the Guggenheim Museum for the first time in my life yesterday. I think because it was raining and I wanted to get out of the rain. I loved the structure, the architecture, I didn’t care so much for the art. It was mostly blank canvases with a few lines drawn, very abstract. I did enjoy the few Degas, Picassos and Rembrants and of course Van Gogh, but it’s no MOMA.

I loved that Mr. Softee was right outside when I arrived, the perfect thing to start my visit, ice cream from my favorite ice cream truck.

Here are a few more pics of my trip inside.

I visited MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) yesterday in New York. It was quite crowded, I guess it always is. I feel very at home there, whenever I’m in town, I make it a point to stop by, I say that I’m visiting “my friends,” Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, etc.

Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” is my favorite. And then I love the Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” I think I’ve told the story often; in college we had to recreate a famous painting using the colors that we cut out of magazines. I chose the Demoiselles painting by Picasso. I did a great recreation, the size was about 3″ x 3,” so when I first saw the original at MOMA a few years later, I was flabbergasted at the size of the real thing. I was so used to seeing my original at that small size that the original really threw me. And “Starry Night” is so much smaller when you see it in person. I has such a prominence in the art world that you would assume it would be much larger than it really it.

Always a crowd around “Starry Night.”

Matisse’s “la Danse”

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

Went to Wynwood (the Williamsburg, Brooklyn of Miami) for lunch with my friend Harry the other day, Zika mosquitoes and all. Visited the Wynwood walls next to Joey’s, the restaurant we ate in and found that they repainted most of the walls. I didn’t know they did that, but it seems like a crime to paint over that great art. I had come upon the this photo of me in front of the walls a few years ago. I noticed that this great colorful mural was changed you can see it here. Then and now.

I use the image of me and the colorful walls sometimes up above as the name plate of this blog.

Then.

Now.

Here are a bunch of new murals at the Wynwood Walls and other areas in Wynwood.

Entrance to Wynwood Walls

Jose de Diego Middle School in the Wynwood neighborhood.