Time to play hooky with Edouard Duval-Carrie

We really should be going to a political luncheon.  One of the high points of AAJ conventions are the big wigs who come to speak.  Sometimes they are phenomenal.  A couple years ago we had  Hilary Clinton, Barak Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson one after the other.   But today, we walk out into the sunshine, grab a cab and head towards the Haiti district.  It is a bit out of the way and our cabbie offers to come back to get us.

We are going to meet an artist.  His building is surrounded by a cultural center.  Apparently he didn't want to sell his place so they built around him.  His building is painted bright red jazzed up with white graphic tatoo like details.  We open the door and are hit with an explosion of color that actually is nowhere as vibrant as the happily boyant person who is Edouard Duval-Carrie.

Ed has a few of Edouard's pieces.  They are friends and chat about everything from glitter glue to whether the displaced poor of Haiti will ever have homes again.  I ask him how long he has been an artist.  He tells me forever.  Except to please his parents he got a degree in urban planning.  Handed them the diploma.  And that was that.

He plays with color and medium in a totally raucous charming way.  From his ceiling floats a boat for an opera.  He has gigantic acrylic sculptures that are going to go on top of a building.  My favorite is a big picture of a woman who is a tree.

Eventually we hear a horn honking.  Amazingly the cabbie has come back to get us.  I take one last breathless look at Edouard and his masterpieces.  And off we go.