words, part of this weekend's booktv on c-span2. >> peter sis describes his life growing up in czechoslovakia. he also discusses his career as an artist and an author and illustrator of children's books. louden county, virginia's one book, one community program hosts this 90-minute event is. ..

>> so please join me in welcoming, one book, one author of "the wall," peter sis. [applause] >> thank you very much for coming. good evening. it will be very interesting because i don't do this often enough. it was a long day. i was getting up in the morning

at 5:00. i got in outside of new york, got in the car taking me to the airport, and like people say, do i detect a little accent here? [laughter] >> you know they know i'm not from new york. he said i have an accident i said i am from a country that doesn't exist anymore. what country is that? the country of czechoslovakia. and he said how long have you been here? and i said that's a good question. i have been in this country have of my life. and the guy said, and you still speak like this? [laughter] >> that's the problem with i

think what i'm doing and what i'm going to talk about because i think if i came to this country, and was at a supermarket, and maybe by now i would have very slight accent. but what -- when i do read books i live in some part of galileo or darwin for your something and i sit alone and draw. then i step out and time has moved again. what happens in my book that i can't quite express myself in the language, things get hidden in the pictures. then of course as an author you would want people to open the book and find out for themselves what they see in the pictures. but the trouble is we are in a society where you're supposed to go out and promote the books. and all these interviews and shows, tell people what you meant by each picture or each sentence which takes the magic away. i know i am not -- wouldn't be

interesting enough if i just become so for me the solution is to show pictures because pictures are a big part of my life and the story of "the wall" and my books. the trouble is, if i want to show the power point, i have to push a button with one hand and hold the microphone with other. this is not what i am usually doing in the evenings of any day. this might create a confusion in my brain. especially since i have already been to the high school which was amazing because both of my kids are now in high school, but they don't want to tell me anything. i had a chance to be inside the high school and see how the children dress and how they talk and they are very nice. i know the thing, i don't think people like this, so i'm little, sort of embarrassed by the. if i have to show the pictures, they may be dimmed the lights on little bit. the pictures you see here, this is where my story begins in "the wall," in my life.

this is like the middle of the century of the last century. again, children in high school i would take the middle of the 20th century because they think i was born in the 19th century. [laughter] >> this was prague which was the capital of czechoslovakia. and 1950s, and today it's sort of colorful city because it's full of tourists but at that time everything was very much bleak and not very colorful. as a challenger cannot control what country you are bored or what politics system you're born into or situation. i was born just after the commonest takeover of czechoslovakia. and i will try to move the picture -- the family house. this is the family house that is interesting because this picture was taken just before 1989.

maybe even like in september 1989, and this is what prague, i grew up look like. it was falling apart, gray, and i think that's what i was trying to create in the pictures in "the wall." so you just see it was very bleak if you come to prochnow. this is the main street full of the cafés and tourist shops and everything that it is completely different. when i was a little child, i was told that i like to draw. this is how i saw "the wall." people say so you are a talented situational child? not necessary. there was no television, no computers. i don't think it happened exactly when i was baby like that but i need to start a book somewhere, so this is the reason. i was surrounded by a loving family. id showing it as a contrast to what happened in private life and public life because the

family, both my parents were artists and they encouraged us to draw and do things. of course, nothing about politics outside or the wealth of situation would come to our mind. because we were living in this sort of family harmony, at least as i remember. then strange thing happened because my father was a young filmmaker who was drafted into the army that everybody was. since he was a filmmaker, he was sent to china because the chinese government asked the czech government, one big, commonest country, to send some film makers to teach how to make documentary films. so my father as 27, 28 year-old men, was sent to china. i'm dealing with that in my book. now we know where china is and what's happening there, but at that time even it was a friendly country to us. it was so far away, took many, many weeks to get there and we only knew that chinese people

eat with the chopstick that my father sort of disappeared, and as i thought as a child he was gone for many, many years to as an adult i discovered he was gone for only 19 months. as a child i thought he was gone forever. he was sort of adventures when he borrowed some caution in tibet to look like tibetan. he met the dalai lama was 19 years old, which is interesting vis-à-vis the book of tibet. in that way i lost great friend and supporter, and somebody who was making fun. so there's a picture of my sister, and i drew and drew maps that this is not my mad. this is a map from my daughter. i wanted to discover the world. i think my father, with this trip to that was important because he sort of indirectly told me when he came back the world is much bigger than i was told in school. this is a picture when i went to school. this is how we looked in the middle of last century. for the first time.

this is when the problems started because all of a sudden we were exposed to the political facts at school we were told different things than at home. how the parents would tell us not to talk about certain things, and when we would start to make sense out of things because it wasn't in the first grade, third grade when you were exposed to all the propaganda to become young pioneers and probably got home and said very excitedly, that this is what everybody should do. and the parents couldn't tell us how it was. so i am eating with the pics of this is the pictures of all the influences when i am being confused little pioneer of walking industry, and this was all the mix of propaganda with, not only stalin, lenin and khrushchev, but these very different books we read at the time which were about the pilot

who was calling to moscow with no legs. it's interesting because if i speak to people from east german and russia today, everyone has the same references and all these things, we were sort of expose, all of us, in the same way. this is dealing with the things that happen in the world. they are not exactly, exactly in the same order of time. but was important was the hungarian uprising, berlin wall, then cuban missile crisis which came much later. president kennedy at berlin wall and his assassination in dallas, vietnam war. this was interesting because i didn't know it was one thing which was common for me in my life with america that we found out we both were hiding under the tables in the fear of a nuclear war. because it was the solution at

that time that the students would be hiding under the table like it would solve anything. i think i didn't like prague. what was happening outside very much, it wasn't very friendly place. it was a dark place. that was not that much fun going on. so in that time i painted everything in our house, some told me i was afraid my father would leave on sunday to begin, but i painted the light switches, and then i found these old chair so i made sort of series of the chairs for people who i wanted to be my friends. so this was somebody who was famous circus artist. this was a famous soccer player. even has the sox. and this was a famous tennis player because you play tennis on clay, so it is red. at that time nobody knew i would become artist in my life. let's face it, as an old person i can now say the chairs are

made for sitting and not for painting on them. [laughter] >> this chair wasn't quite dry when my friend came to visit. to my shock i would see my painting leaving through the door. [laughter] >> at that time it wasn't appreciated at all. i also do a lot of schools, so this is just from later time. i had big physics, math because i was doing all the time. i was using it to tell kids not to do. i think they would do on facebook probably. [laughter] >> i did all these different pictures at that time of people, sort of flying, some were getting over the port is. but i didn't understand the concept that there would be something wrong with the government who is telling me you cannot go from this place to that place, because it was just part of our lives and nobody was questioning that. so i was dealing with all kinds. i want to be a painter. these are paintings that i wanted to be a rock 'n roll

musician so this is now beginning to 1968. this is alexander speaking to people in prague in 1960. this was the best time of my life because i was young all of a sudden we could go and travel. we could hitchhike all over europe. we started to play rock music that we would hear about the beatles. all of these things came tothn up and it will be reasonable. i remember going in 1968 hitchhiking to england and arguing with somebody who was a british army officer retired, and he said you think russians will do it like that? they will come. i said no, they cannot go because what with the world say about it? and it was a big shock of 1968 when the russians came. of course, i was in london on the 21st of august when the russian army came and then i went to denmark for like months. it took make two months to come back to prague. in my book i do sort of not to explain it because it will

become way too difficult. i think today if i was in prague when the russian tanks and planes came, that probably i would have left right there and wouldn't spend another 15 years or something trying to figure out where i should be living. i was chosen as an art student in the economy of applied arts in prague by this amazing illustrator and filmmaker. he sort of handpick me as a student. two thirds of my friends disappeared in the whole world. i was sort of like always thinking like he'd take me as his student that i have to stand out in school. he was so sad about what happened in 68, he died in 1969. at least i could say i was his due for one year. i graduate from school of applied arts in prague which i don't come in the book that i was trying to make living as an artist. i was making film posters, which now it's great that you are much

older than people in high school because i had to explain what is film posters, what his record. [laughter] >> to go into records lee. who was a president clinton on mrs. kennedy. i was asked very young to design costumes. and i was such an arrogant young artists, young artists are because this was a story happening under the ocean that i designed these costumes. i found out later they all hated me because it's very difficult to sing in this. [laughter] >> which i didn't care because i was an artist and i would think about a poor opera singer standing there and there were more creatures like that. [laughter] >> it was not very considerate of me. i became also a disc jockey, admitted down to my children. that was a mistake that they

also led to the fact i became the most popular or one of the most popular disc jockeys in czechoslovakia. i had a radio show. this was just after 68 and it was being. i had problems with what kind of music i played or what did i say and things like that. so there was the way to go and i fully dedicated myself to art. the experience with art was that my first professional assignments and this is now a 1970s, so the russians came and the kind of regime and its game became very dictating and powerful. i was asked to make a record cover -- so that i don't have to explain, like the people now don't know. and the record cover was for this record cold airport by the singer who is sort of very suspicious to the government. and i just came up with one design and it was canceled. then i came up with the design of the little airport will would

be like the little house and little things going in the wind. when i brought this cover into the recording company, was only one recording company, or two, the second one, that guy said, did you ever check which side is the wind is supposed to blow from? and that was for me, this is not funny. this is important because each artist is responsible for what he is doing and it was my lesson when he called ministry of interior and culture and we waited for 20 minutes and then he said, you lucky, comrade. your wind is blowing in the right direction. [laughter] >> for me i am right handed so the wind is blowing this way. if i was left-handed it would have been going the other way. i started to do animation but there were questions about animation, what certain things mean. and what was difficult for the arts is everybody was as possible for censoring himself or herself at the difference

between the '50s when the system was censoring things, and then 70s was that you were responsible for everything. i'm covering that in the double spread in the book when people are asked to come to their office to somebody who asked them if they really b and people who refuse or were involved in 68 would become -- who would get meaningless jobs. and the other thing was artists were involved to the national theatre and asked to sign the petition that they agreed with the russians coming to prague. and a sort of lock the door and everybody was told like do you want to lose your house, do you want your children to be kicked out of the school? the majority of people sign because that was the nature of people at that time. and i thought if i were there when i have signed that not? these are the diaries in the

book. the dreams of people who are always talking about somebody who escaped to the west, and because this wall and it was a space where you couldn't, of course there was a big space wi people with dogs and electric fences. there were always stories about somebody who got on the train on the roof of the train or hand gl and flew over. i was very surprised when i found out and some publications there was a man who must've been so brave, had two little kids, and he had -- he collected old raincoats which he knew he could make a balloon and in some bar and he made a balloon out of raincoats. then he somehow inflated the balloon and he was famous bicyclist said he was carrying his bicycle and dublin and two kids and just barely miss the wires. and that was his sort of -- that was the desire to get to west

germany. this is a picture again to do with the wall. which was just what's happening inside a people's is an animated film, 12 minutes longer which won at film festival at that time. for me it was like leaving for the west, i have in the book this man lying on the wings. for me it was i remember it was an amazing express because had to cross the wall, i had special card but i remember there was a soldier with a machine gun and i was going through this film festival. but the corruption in prague with such if i wanted to get a passport, the woman who was giving me the passport said you're going to west berlin that if you go to west berlin, can you get me yellow umbrella, or something, which you couldn't get in each year. i said i will go get the yellow umbrella. the second one said i have a

little yorkshire terrier. i cannot find scissors to cut and become his country. so i was going to berlin for one day with my film festival and i was supposed to find a yellow umbrella and scissors to cut the dog which would be hard in any place. and i did find it but i completely missed showing in string of my feel so again i got back and i got back to prague and i opened the newspaper and they said that i won the golden bear in west berlin. but i wasn't really even better to win it, but still it was fantastic because it was one of those good things bad things. because all of a sudden everybody knew me and animation and i was invited to make series in london and i was invited to make series in switzerland. for television. i was becoming like well-known animation film director. the problem was that people in prague can travel at all and people outside who immigrated couldn't go back. all of sudden i was one of the

people who could fly. i had this passport and i could fly. i remember i was confused because i would see in london tomatoes, and i would be to prague and i would go to the store and say and i have a pound of tomatoes? and it was like april. it was creating problems and people said i remember coming to the bar and zürich and there was in the wild western movie that somebody said, i buy transfer everybody. just not for that guy over there. and i could feel and you mean me? he said yes, i mean you. i said why would you call me that? he said because you have a check passport. a czechoslovakian passport. i said but i am an artist that he said but you are serving the government over there. so then i did know what to say that i said let's step outside. because like i said in the movies they say let's step outside. [laughter] >> i didn't feel like it very much. and a guy, it was like -- they were check people and he was a dentist who was waiting for

swiss citizenship and he was afraid if he would step outside, not that he would lose his tooth but he was afraid he would get in trouble and he wouldn't get his swiss citizenship that he said i don't buy it and then some people said he's not bad at all that. i said it was just creating more and more problems to be a person who is moving in the middle part of it all. but i feel responsible for my family and what would be the problem. but with this film in berlin i was invited to los angeles in 1982 to make a film for olympic games in 1984. and the company which was making the film is also making first video clips for a new channel on television called mtv, and that's when i was asked, this is now these are for three months. i'm working on the film for olympic games. it was seven minutes of animation and i was asked to make this film for bob dylan for his own, you've got to serve somebody, for mtv.

that was fantastic because i love music. that i love bob dylan. mtv, nobody knew if it was be successful or not, but who cares? i thought i was like the moment in my life when everything came together. i was in hollywood. i was invited, they had white suits and swimming pools, no matter. and everything was okay for two months. but what people don't understand are born free and didn't live in a totalitarian country, that if you live in totalitarian country they give you permission to ask for a decent. they give you permission to travel for certain period of time. if you didn't come back in that time you would be in trouble. even passport would be taken away or if you came very late, you just could end up in prison. this was a whole issue that since you are a little boy you were brought up with this in doctor nation that only bad

people would leave their country. only bad people would go across the border and live with not seize. it was amazing how only good people if any east, there were good germans and badger them is. you had this feeling, this nightmare that you do something you're not supposed to do and leave. and if you have permission to go for two weeks, that you would come back in three weeks and be a disaster. now i am completely flabbergasted because i'm talking from kansas city to new york, and i said i am so happy to be from kansas city. they don't feel guilty about it at all. this was the guilt trip which they gave, they had planted in your head. i am working on this film and i know i'm extending, i am overstaying my permission to the czech is to make this film. but i thought this film will be successful. i will become rich and i will go back and explain because i was gone long enough that i started to think and constructive way.

so i finished the film. and i wasn't there when they looked at it, but they said they didn't like the film. all of a sudden i felt like i have nothing to show for why i stayed longer but if i go back i will be in trouble. i have to publish something in america before i go back. otherwise, there will be no excuse. so and it's now 27 years and i'm still trying to a publish it. [laughter] >> and it was really hard because i had lots of ideas for the films, but everybody in america is very polite, cheerful. is an interesting idea to let us look at it. we will let you know. and i was walking in los angeles. they realize he's not going home. so all of a sudden i wasn't invited that much and i really did know what to do with myself. and i remember one lady i met at the party was very rich and she was collecting paintings because

she had painting by picasso. she said if you ever have time and you would paint an egg, i would pay some money for a. so i thought that the solution that i bought lots of eggs and painted them and try to blow the inside. i have hated eggs ever since. i made eggs with little hats that i started to bring her eggs all the time. she just wanted one egg, really. [laughter] >> so a friend of mine who was head of the municipal art gallery who still loves my work, she got me teaching job in los angeles. but i did hold it long enough because i didn't understand that i, prague schools were for free and all of a sudden this was cool people pay for and i was supposed to be nice to them so they would keep on paying. but in the same time from the prague school i was used to people who weren't really prepared to sacrifice everything for art. and i thought i would send the assignments that before the class so they wouldn't have to stay up all my. they all came to the principal

and said this is california. why should we stay up all my? we can do it in the daytime, which i understand now but i lost most of the student and that when i lost my teaching job. here i got lucky because this friend from menus up all liked my pictures. i knew about the name. lots of things as we talk about today are based on my misunderstanding of american culture. so i knew him but i did know how famous he is. i did have any intention to go into children's books that he called me collect and said we want to be a children's book that i didn't want to be in children's books but if he calls you and you broke your not going to argue with them. you are going into children's books. he said you are in a worse place of america. i said i haven't been to any other place i don't know. he said you had to come to the east coast that i had no money, but i got lucky because someone was finishing a movie and he asked me to make a poster for

the money i got the poster, i bought an old car and i'm so excited i'm going to east coast that i set it must be on the other side. and i drove, and got to san antonio, texas, and thought i should be turning left. [laughter] >> and i was just lucky that this was an old days because there was a state trooper and i said which way to do your? [laughter] >> with my accent, he made me take everything out of the car. but if it was now after 9/11, i would be probably like dead or something. then he said okay, i can tell you which way to do your. now i have to take everything out i will find myself that i did find it myself. i couldn't get in because i didn't understand the concept of bridges and tunnels that so this is related that i just used this picture from the book. sort of choosing this is the wall and choosing between good things and bad things in life.

i made a mistake that this for me was formulate decisions we make in life, choosing between good things and bad things. manhattan, statue of liberty or new york, it's a symbol of eedom for me. but the way i did it when they published now in europe and in prague and eastern europe, people got upset because of how i do it. it's like there is america. this is like the western european everything is good here and everything else in the east is bad. i'm guessing it wasn't my intention. but some people like to get -- that is geographical. this is more spiritual for me. this is how my life changed in new york. i thought i would be -- i wasn't interested in making children's books but i thought i will make one book, two books, 250 laypeople in america can't be problems to sell you a million books. i thought i would be making animated film out of it. i realize i have to pay for the apartment, and somebody said you

could do editorial illustrations. so in 1984, in june, i pointed "new york times" and they gave me first assignment, which changed my life because they gave me two pictures to do. i gave him three options for each picture. i said i can do it in one line which would take 10 minutes or half an hour, one hour. but everybody was doing the. i wanted to make sure i've reduce something which nobody else is doing so i would be getting work all the time. i need work all the time because the rent was like $900 a month. they paid $150 a picture so i needed six pictures of months to pay for the red. i came up with the idea that i would do pictures for hundreds and thousands of little dogs that nobody else was doing that. they actually, they took that and from then on i was getting pictures almost every day. the trouble is if you make hundreds and thousands of little dots it took days. so i had lots of work but no social life because i was

sitting there making these dogs. eventually i came all shaky and doubting myself. people say you're the man who makes little dots. i hate dogs like i hate eggs. [laughter] >> i was making over a thousand illustrations for "new york times" and other magazines made of thousands and hundreds of little dots that it's interesting that i just finished a book and what i used to do 20 years ago i would spend all night making these dogs. i try to re-create these dogs like three months ago and i immediately had to go to the doctor because all my muscles, it's impossible these dots, you can only be a certain period of your life. especially when you have no social life and you can do it. but the black and white pictures led to colorful pictures. i also started to do children's books. this is my first book in america. nobody quite like the idea because the faces are two-out but i started to illustrate for other people with those little

dots. so this was the first book. then i was lucky because i was the second or third book was the whipping boy. i just did a new book with him to remember what has happened in 1985. he got the newberry award for this. do that, it's not my pictures were that great, but through this my name got and to schools. also i started to suspect that the time and i admitted that when i put on any cover of the books, something like moon or sun, something golden which is around and looks like a metal, that the committees that you but i've been talking about this too much and that if you look at all my books, people know it now and go, no, we are not going to give it to him. [laughter] >> then finally i could do my own book, and this is where books going back to the wall,

this is where the books were about me and the new country. i wasn't used to -- i was sitting in the studio painting on the times i was trying to sort of talk about myself and how i see the new place. so the rhinoceros is really a lowly creatures living in this strange new country. and wondering around looking for friends picked these are his spiritual friends which are these rainbow birds. this was the observation when finally i want to get a sandwich or something and i see this beautiful woman waving at me and i thought finally, somebody i know. it was just someone who is trying to stop the taxi. [laughter] >> is a book about different people waiting and different people on the elevators. because where i grew up there would not mean the elevators at all. and beaches because this was -- that shows it's dedicated to my sister because i thought she will not be able to travel again. it was just before 1989.

what is interesting, based on these books like the waving, going up, and beach ball, the architects were redesigning the, asked me to make a wall which was my practical, and the children's area, baltimore-washington. now they changed the whole airport because they don't have the children's area. this is in the food court. evil who like to be still see it and it's on the if you haven't grease or catchup coming off, i guess you can just wipe it. which reminded that you really have beautiful ceramic tiles in his library. it's a beautiful library. congratulations. [applause] >> so this is 1989. this is a student. a student demonstration which happened on the 24th of november, and the police -- it was a moment when it looked like the police could kill people and then they didn't kill people. the things started to unfold so

this was the moment when the wall -- i took my wife to be, my wife now, was microphone, and i brought her to prague. and said prague is a very quiet in the fall and we can take a walk in the old town. and we came from new york and it was like this warm evening and we walked up the street and we see these people walking with suitcases and teddy bears. looks like from some movie. we come to the park and were more people coming from the bushes that these were people from east germany who parked cars and trying to get the west german embassy. there were like thousands of east german people who were in the west german embassy. the minister came and it was the special trade which sort of also unfolded the events. i remember how i still, because i grew up in this brainwashed childhood as you see in "the wall" that we walked, these

germans asked if i could show them the way to west german mc. i could do it but i did understand, what's going on. is the police going to come. i had my new american passport but i was the kindest system. i'm going with like 10 germans, then it's like 20 germans and then like 60 germans. détente because we going for some time and so what do you do? i was like i'm a carpenter. because i was trying to like, then i hear my wife who grew up in the free country. she says i'm a film editor in new york. i said don't tell them the truth. what if the police come? say we are somebody else. this one guy takes the document as is thank you for taking me to freedom. but in this town i already knew how many does i need to do to pay my rent you will have to work for it. i have never seen him since. i was ready to go back to prague like a lot of people did. it was funny that most of my friends from art school became

ministers and government and when they came to new york in 1990, for the first time we had this evening one bears, cougars. do you want to be ambassador to ghana? would you like to be ambassador? it was through the evening but in the end i was supposed to be director of sun chemical factory in slovakia, which is very lucky that i never can't do because it would be a complete disaster. but that was a time when people could relate and who became involved in all this. but gradually they all gave up on and went back to arts. it's a very few people who stayed in politics really. i did a poster for 1990 election. i thought before i leave, i was going but i thought i will do both of which will show somehow my gratitude through america and it was about christopher bond is because i was trying to book

about mark paul. christopher plummer as is the perfect your. it was silly because i didn't at all expect to happen because it was 500 years of christopher columbus and lots of people don't really like the idea of christopher columbus. this is how you work with charlie and it was a big book for me. big pictures pic what's interesting, surrounding europe and i said columbus didn't let the wall holding back but wanted to discover what's beyond the wall. and immediately after that, had to do with superstition and freedom, and immediately after that i did book about something i atn to do with identity and freedom. it was film i've seen on public television about a whale. which grows up with people and getting too big. so people decide they can't keep her in the pool and let her go. just visual book. the whale -- it's a true story

that you will immediately goes into pacific ocean and joins the other gray whales. i thought how did the gray new with the other whales look like? the whole book is the visual joke about how do we'll try to figure out who she is looking at the submarine? in the end, doesn't let anybody but i had to change it because i got married with my wife. [laughter] >> it wasn't because i have to say that if somebody who knows her, the slides are to remind me what happened in my life that my life has been so long now that i go like this is where we got me. we got married little bit before that. i'm guessing that if somebody would tell her. [laughter] >> even on a honeymoon we went on island of komodo. again to do with what people believe in and they are being told to and as little boy in the book who loves dragons, he believes he met komodo dragon, and the parents don't believe in him.

the boy said it was the best vacation he had. after that, -- expecting baby so i decided to do a book from cold, siberia, alaska about exploring. everybody else doesn't believe he existed, but he was -- he made up his story but he was a fantastic man who lived with the eskimos. i have it here because when i was making the snowflakes and he stuck to the magnetic mountain on this picture. my wife said we have to go. my life has changed. [laughter] >> see, that didn't work in the high school today because the students don't have this sentiment. bearlike so what? and i need people who older people, and they go, yet. i have to say get if somebody who knows my wife, this is not my first job that i couldn't find a picture of my first child.

this is just to tell you that life has changed because we had a child that this is the second scheppach it doesn't matter because she is now 17 so she looks completely different anyway. [laughter] >> and this time, so now i could go back to prague because we had a little baby. my wife is american. i had a phone call from a woman who says i am mrs. on nasa's. i thought i heard that name before. she works for doubleday and i explain i meet her. are you mrs. on nasa's? we don't say that i was pretending i don't know who she is. she was pretending i don't know who she is and we had this relationship that she would say i live in washington. i said you lived in washington? i knew she lived in washington. i would say i had to get. she said i had to get. i said really, you don't look like you have two kids? [laughter] >> but it was nice he gave me chance to do a book about prague. until then at that time nobody knew where prague is that she went to prague incognito as a

guest of the president and she said why don't you do a book about prague? i did book about prague which was amazing because it was about myself going back. i made myself look mysterious and good. it was a good book that i needed somebody to have as a guide in the book that i put i don't know why i put in the black cat. i saw little black cat that it was a great move because i was expecting with a book that people who love abroad would come and buy the book. and there were hundreds of people who love cats but it's amazing how many love cats. it even better if you do dogs because dogs can be big, small. cats are universal. i remember a woman who bought eight books for a cats. [laughter] >> that's not right because there are kids who don't have many books there but if somebody is buying a book you are not going to argue it, of course. so this was really going back in my past and doing things which i love that this is my hero, but i

completely copied for the book. not as good. i always admired because he painted imperial rudolph who was the god of the fall. but he waso he doesn't get upset so he sent it with the messengers before he made his own appearance. and the book unfortunately became known, this is my version of it, so it is nothing like the original but it is supposed to whet your appetite. what happened, the book became well known also because it was a very last book of business on nasa's. misses on nasa's died one month before the book came out that there were articles and i was talking about. you can see how we are in 12 years ago. and somebody wrote article that i was letting down and out in los angeles painting eggs and mrs. on nasa's came as achieving a chance to do this book. and i got a call that i thought

was a joke. they asked me if i would paint the egg for the first lady and president of the united states. so i painted a large egg. they said we don't want to tell you what to paint but if it could be so patriotic motive. so i have an eagle, don't you know me. is a giant egg. i did a hat with a net because i thought that would help you. but they were not interested because they don't represent a straw hats. the only man in washington before the white house ceremony which was the easter monday, and i remember all of a sudden i was afraid this is not the egg, this is a giant, big a. the man from the american board was so nice, as it has he seen the egg he's a beautiful. it was a mighty big chicken, wasn't it? [laughter] >> then of course my daughter is 17. this many years ago. she didn't know that she

confused white house with white man because he had white hair already and she took the egg and drop it. i had to throw myself on the floor but again, when i tried, and the high school i wasn't quite sure if it's not too long time ago. now he had a second child. this is the second scheppach in fact, the same she would have seen before. [laughter] >> just to show how the family was there for him i did book about "starry messenger" which goes back to the wall because it's about galileo, but first picture i had on my mind was galileo when he stands in front of all the cardinals and he is supposed to announce what he had written about. and for me there wasn't that much about gedo. it was a symbol against individual as sort of show of power. here we go. this is like, she is six.

and i did book for her and i had to negotiate that i change her name because the book is called "madlenka." like madeline albright but it was too close to battleline. which way was my intentions that people would confuse with my book. so i came up with this czech version and asked if i have permission to change her name. i said it's about a little girl who looks just like you. but it's called "madlenka" because this way she had to withdraw permission anytime, ice cream before dinner or anything. this was a time of hope and i wanted to say freedom, people living in the big city being from many different countries. my son lived across from the fire station and he was upset i made a book for her. i made a book for him about how he loves firetruck so much and read about them and trains about

the. and this is where he becomes firetruck and rides around the apartment and saves -- helps and if he smells something and it's pancakes. and he parks the firetruck and has a breakfast. but then of course, she wanted to have a dog that this was like the best time of my life because then i did a book about how she wanted on. i didn't deal with freedom or politics that uses the joys of being a child. then he said how come she has two books? [laughter] >> he likes dinosaurs. than i did know this was like the best i because i was a hero for the children. they couldn't walk far away or somehow not talking to me. they were happy about everything. i was making these books for them. it was very, very nice. they were getting bigger and they started to have their own ideas, of course. than my father who was diagnosed with, he was done in private i

was on the way back to prague but now we're in 1997. i decided because he was diagnosed with cancer that i have to do story about him in bed. so this is tory with lots and lots of personal feelings. this is his drones which are not in the book. what he did in the bed. his meeting with the dalai lama. for four years, five years he was trying to make peace. people who are building roads and the people building the road that the road collapsed and my father recorded some of the customs in tibet, which we don't, cannot see there anymore. and i came up with this idea of doing different which was terrible because really was -- each is very time-consuming i would like to say that each picture is a maze or labyrinth because i was looking for answers for my relationship with

my father. it was a very sort of personal book about him and me. and then coincidentally, i was asked to have this big exhibition in prague castle in the riding school, and completely by coincidence, his holiness, dalai lama came. so this is my father who went to tibet and i was able to present the book for the first time which was great because he didn't know why i'm showing him the book but he signed a. that way i got the book blends and was very, very and still is very nice book. i had it wrapped in 1954. so it's sort of came to full circle because when i was a little boy, i'd saw these prints from the fairytale. so that's the picture of the three of us, each generations. and this is world trade center which was next to my kids school. and the fire station which the

book of firetruck was dedicated to which was on fire street and five of these firemen who were playing with my son sort of perished in the trade center. after that came crisis when i didn't know if it makes sense to be in the books anymore, if the books makes any difference. but there were all these assignments which were dedicated to 9/11. one was the book when i did the illustration for walt whitman that this was probably the best of my life because this was a project of the metropolitan transportation authority. they have these big long frames on the trains. they asked me to make a post to. this was before 9/11 but because the frameless along, i did a book about the whales. so i had this well and i place like the landscape of manhattan. it's like the great and somehow the poster came up just after 9/11 and it was almost two years on the train number one and two

and i think for. and it just became somehow very sentimentally -- became very fitting for how people felt. and it wasn't promoted but i think i would find almost every day some message from somebody who said thank you. it was an amazing feeling of some sort of bonding without really being too explicit or this was a very special to sf yesterday if i want to say who i am and i don't have to say the cards or a whatever that if i say the whale, people say oh, you did that while. so that's like sort of probably the best project i did that because of that i in the pool of the artists who metropolitan transportation authority chooses me for different project. it's an amazing project. they have hundreds of artists and each one is doing decoration for each station. and i was very lucky because the people who did the most day, it's nothing like you have the

ceramic cancer, but it was like a decided that when i designed everything outside and i did know anything about budgeting and budgeting for each station is only 1 percent from what the whole station costs, goes. there is a theory that if you would have a colorful art in the subway, people will feel better. that some people would want that at all. i did for different mosaics for 86 street and lexington. are rigidly come all the pictures were outside of, but because it would cost too much i had to move all the colors inside of the i. nobody will ever know what how did he come up with this idea that it was just because of the budget. so it's a neighborhood of 8060 and people from all over the world play different music and have children on the curves in the park and happy. i had like many musicians playing different music but because of the budget i have six musicians and one burden. [laughter]

>> i can have most of the content that because i was making this round picture than i was doing also run. but i don't think with time to go into this but i just want to say that like columbus, like galileo, like darwin, are again connected to the wall because these are people who dare to think different things that was the usual stuff at that time and it wasn't always easy. this is just a promise to tell somebody does, that this is interesting if you are an illustrated and it wouldn't happen with the computer, but if you do everything by hand, i didn't draw darwin when he writes his book origin of the species and it was all finished and then i watch television and it was english to an actor who everything with his left hand. i thought, the british always do research on bbc or something. so i went to the computer guy not very good with computers and i put it down and left hand and the paper came out with all the geniuses were left-handed. i said that's a pic he was left-handed. so i took razor, x-acto knife

and erased the 10th of his right hand and moved into his left hand. is likely more pictures in the book when he signed something so i move the pen on all three pictures to the left in. and the book is about to go to print. this is book where everybody knows will be lots of questions. so they say how do you know he is left-handed. it came out on this one paper from the computer and i have seen this film on television. then that like more papers, out of computer from 50 papers, he is only two papers maybe he was left-handed. so they say, find out from film from england that my wife starts calling london. it was in english actor but it was done in seattle. so she got director of the film in seattle. and he said we thought nobody would notice that the actor is left-handed. [laughter] >> that i was facing this dilemma because i thought i could leave it there and nobody quite knows if he was or wasn't there but i thought if some child today, like you will

groping use this book as reference, he knew he was left-handed. so i started to erase the pain from the left him but by this time the paper was getting so thin that now if you look at it he is holding nothing. [laughter] >> because it's not because i wanted to stay away like to be middle of the road, but it's because i just couldn't draw anything anymore because you can see through the paper. darwin is writing original species with no pen. [laughter] >> so that's if you want to be an illustrated but now i'm computer, we would change in no time. this is like research. this is just a long time ago. children are still very funny that she is smiling to. >> i can. [laughter] he is now bigger than i am. this is what we did in harlem which was called the pieces for peace. david beckham when he came to

turkey need need some ethnic background so you have a whole youtube video with david beckham playing soccer in front of this wall. and then it led to the book about traina stays. this is a different states that this was about mozart. this was book about borders which give me inspiration. which is about people from all over the world living together. it's all dedicated, this is the picture of the brain flight away and i did art back in czech republic. and we get to "the wall" that i think you can see the book that this is the children in the latest stage, he was still funny, she was not so for the. [laughter] >> these are different pictures when i wanted to talk about things, which we didn't see then and we see now. like people couldn't read

what they wanted to read and had to read in secret, they were not supposed to write. people who painted pictures that were not supposed to bring. people standing in lines which were not supposed to be had. sometimes when you live in situation like that you don't see because you take sort of picture of everyday life. working on this book started really as little pictures for my children to explain what i grew up with, more and more i think about certain things, more angry it would make me. the simple as you seen in the first picture was mostly monotone, just with the red flags. then it was this activity happening sort of underground and secret. somebody in high school as me why i made all the secret policeman as sort of looking like pigs, which really is not there because first of all, people in other books. i needed somebody who looks

different that it was easy to draw. and i think pigs are intelligent e little rabbits. but people were just innocent rabbits. so this is sort of all going thro many changes. this was a tribute to rock 'n roll and people had to build thei