A million little gardeners
Seedbed, 2010, by Elliott Arkin. Photograph: Amherst College
A Million Little Pieces author James Frey is set to turn the artist Elliott Arkin’s series of sculptures depicting famous artists as garden gnomes into a children’s book, due to be published in 2016. Four years ago, Frey purchased one of the resin works—a miniature lawn-mowing Picasso—from the series, titled A Peaceable Kingdom, 2004-2012, at New York’s Half Gallery, which he co-owned at the time. “It is one of the most brilliantly funny works of art,” Frey says. So when Arkin later asked the author to write a catalogue essay for his exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice last year, Frey suggested a short story. He wound up with enough material for a book and took an option on the rights from Arkin, who says, “I am thrilled to see what narrative James creates.”