Collage in progress: the little prince

You know about The Little Prince, right? (Not that one. This one.)

Credit: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (U.S. public domain, copyrighted in France until 2045)

I'm working on a collage homage to the little prince, so to speak. This summer, I noticed NASA celebrated the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing by uploading photos from all the missions to Flickr. I'm now remixing a few of those images with my family photos, on watercolor paper.

The book's watercolor illustrations pulled me into that other universe so long ago I don't even remember the first time I saw them. But even as a kid, I understood the themes of alienation and connection perfectly. Not that I could have told you this back then, but I knew alienation isn't just loneliness, or even being alone by choice.

Museum of the Little Prince, Hakone, Japan. Credit: arieM1FLERéunion/ Wikimedia Commons

It's also about the parallel experience of not quite living in the same reality as the person next to you. Even when the other person is your friend, that connection is always tenuous and changing.  You might remember I also explored those ideas in my most recently completed piece. So as I continue to work on the Great Mystery Project, I find that  head space melancholy but also full of potential and anticipation. More to come.

(And if you haven't read The Little Prince, what are you waiting for? It's less than 100 pages. I know -- I've read it in both French and English.)