Saturday, March 22, 2014

Arnold Lobel at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

The Crocodile in the Bedroom from Fables, 1980










I squeaked into the Contemporary Jewish Museum today moments before the Arnold Lobel show left town. Wasn't it fantastic? My favorite thing was seeing the spiral ring notebooks he wrote in every day. I loved seeing the first drafts of his work written in pen with words and phrases crossed out and re-worked, along with his tiny sketches.

But my favorite thing about seeing his notebooks were his everyday lists. People's names, phone numbers––and then when he actually took care of something his list, he'd put a line through it.