This week I love ... the MTA?

Among the many things I love this week is this sweet little poster by Leonard Quiles for the (gasp) MTA. For all of the times the MTA has let us down (let me count the ways), I have to give the Establishment for Fare Exchange props for supporting the visual arts. This poster is one in an ongoing series about New York transit. I love seeing it everywhere. It makes me want to draw more. And something about that bunny is wonderfully off.

The bunny poster made me think of two other MTA landmarks I adore: the 14th Street/Eighth Avenue station on the E line and the Prince Street stop on the N,R,W.

At 14th/Eighth are Tom Otterness's Life Underground figures in bronze. It is sort of like Disneyland took over the station, with all these unspeakably cute figures acting out scenes of daily life. Think dozers from Fraggle Rock. Freaking pinchably cute. Except they are bronze, which is not so pinchable.

Prince Street station is adorned with "Carrying On" by Janet Zweig and Edward del Rosario, featuring 200 silhouettes of people carrying things. I admired this work for a while, mostly trying to figure out how the mosaics fit so cleanly (cut with waterjets). But then I heard the story behind the frieze and it took on a whole new meaning, placing it firmly in my heart as a piece of real New York. The artists spent time photographing actual people all over the city who were carrying things. They translated some of these images into the silhouettes. In the artists' own words: "People on the streets of New York are almost always carrying something, sometimes something huge and outlandish. After the 9/11 tragedy, New Yorkers felt that they must carry on with their lives. Finally, New Yorkers are notoriously opinionated and lively; they really do 'carry on.'"

Signing off, lest I, too, carry on ...