In the summer of 1977, Andy Warhol and I took a trip to his house in Aspen, Colorado. He loved that part of the world, partly because he loved pretending he could ski, but also because a number of his greatest collectors were based around there, many of whom were friends, too.
On this occasion, we went to visit the singer John Denver, who had a bunch of airplanes, from small private jets to this experimental bi-plane. When I saw it, I told Andy to jump in. But those things are actually pretty small and difficult to enter – it’s not like you can just hop in. Andy couldn’t manage it, so I told him to stand on the other side of the cockpit instead, and angled the lens to make it look as though he was inside the thing.
