Patchwork Pound Puppy Puzzle 1

“It is the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and of creative action that man finds his supreme joys.”
–Antoine De Saint-Exupery

 

Patchwork Pound Puppy Puzzle 1 for P.A.W.S.
5″ x 7″ Acrylic on Wooden Puzzle

When asked to donate something for P.A.W.S. (Progressive Animal Welfare Society) by the SE Oklahoma Assoc. of Realtors, I knew it had to be pound puppies.  I painted three of them, which I’ll show you over the next few days.  I think they’ll be best auctioned off as a set.  They were fun to do, until it came to separating the pieces.  I had to slice the acrylic apart with an Xacto blade, then do a little trimming and sanding of the individual pieces, because the wood had swollen a bit.   All in all, I am pleased with them and hope they do well at their auction.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery wrote one of my favorite books of all time.  If you want to read something that will change your perspective on life, read “The Little Prince“.  It’s a children’s book, written in 1943 and eventually translated into a bunch of different languages.  I have bought many copies over the years and given them as gifts.  I think I was 17 the first time I read it and 50, the last time. 


Antoine De Saint-Exupery

• Born: 29 June 1900
• Birthplace: Lyon, France
• Died: 31 July 1944 (airplane crash)
• Best Known As: Author of The Little Prince

Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupéry was a French aviator and the author of the children’s fable The Little Prince (1943). A veteran of France’s air service (1921-23), he spent most of his working life in commercial aviation. He flew postal routes across Spain into Africa — he survived a 1935 crash in the Sahara — and flew in Brazil and Argentina for a time. He also wrote novels. Southern Mail (1929), Night Flight (1931) and Wind, Sand and Stars (1939) brought him critical and popular success. He flew for the French at the beginning of World War II, but with Germany’s occupation of France Saint-Exupéry relocated to the U.S. and Canada, where he wrote his most famous work, The Little Prince. Despite being a little too old to fly, he joined the Free French and Allied air forces toward the end of World War II. He went on a mission to collect information on German troop movements in the Rhone valley on 31 July 1944 and was never seen again; Saint-Exupéry became France’s own Amelia Earhart. His aircraft was discovered in the late 1990s off the coast of Marseilles, but his corpse was missing. Former German ace pilot Horst Rippert claimed in 2008 that he was nearly certain he’d shot down Saint Exupéry in 1944 (Rippert also expressed regret, calling Saint Exupéry one of his favorite authors at the time).