Saturday, September 27, 2008
L.A. Flower District
This morning Ryan & I went downtown to visit the Flower District. In another life, I would totally love to be a flower arranger or wedding planner. But as a flower arranger, I'd probably get all anal and crazy a la Ruth on Six Feet Under. I really went down in seek of flower boxes to make into little homes for my dolls, but they were far too narrow. So I'll be brainstorming another way to present them all weekend.
Also, we got a new computer so I'm delighting in the speed & color accuracy.
 Labels: losangeles
Monday, July 21, 2008
And on the seventh day, she baked.
I made these black bottom cupcakes (recipe originally from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, but I found it here) yesterday morning for a picnic at the Hollywood Bowl. My friends came up and the five of us went to see Feist play with Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. I'm mentioning Sharon Jones here cause I loved her fierce, shimmery silver shift dress. She looked like Tina Turner. Feist was alright -- her voice so lovingly reminds me of Cat Power sometimes, but a little younger/less whiskey. However, I would have far preferred to see her some place small and intimate, like the Music Box or something, because it was hard for her to carry the Bowl.
I still had a lot of fun though, drinking, eating, dancing, chatting in the cheap seats way up in the woods though. Experiencing cheap Bowl tickets with a big picnic basket is one of the best things about summer in LA. It was also great just to see my friends and catch up with them, since I have very few actually in the city, and we're all so busy with this growing up business.
Oh yeah, I also made those NYTimes chocolate chip cookies. Ah-mazing. The dash of salt and 36+ hours made SUCH a difference. A guy in my life drawing class said that I draw as well as I make cookies...which I'm taking as a compliment.
It's so funny that I don't have much of a sweet tooth really, because I love to bake so much. Things that are meditative for me: life drawing & baking. Oh and finishing a book, but it's really the act of finishing that's completely calming - the reading up to it is frenetic. Which reminds me -- this weekend I also took a break from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to read a short story from Amy Orringer: Pilgrims.Labels: books, domestic goddess, losangeles
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Art of Simple Food: from California with love.
I've been lusting for a trip to H&M. Especially after seeing all these adorable goodies on stylish ladies. Sometimes the consumerist lust is overwhelming. But tonight, I distracted myself with the art of simple food. Specifically, Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food.
I had checked the volume out from the library, and renewed it twice before someone else put a hold on it and I had to bring it back. Begrudgingly I surrendered the book today, but not before buying a copy for myself. It's the perfect kitchen companion for your first grown-up kitchen -- all about buying local and sustainable, making good simple food with quality ingredients, and how to make everything. Like a modern, California version of The Joy of Cooking.
The best part of where I work is that every Wednesday, there's an enormous (and rather famous) farmer's market. Alongside local pistachios, fingerling potatoes and rainbow chard, you have Scarlett Johansson. So chalk that up to another pro of living in Los Angeles. Today I was one starlet short, but I did find organic strawberries, donut peaches, asparagus, chives, and zucchini.
The chives contributed to my first attempt at one of the four essential sauces from The Art of Simple Cooking: herb butter. For dinner, I tried out the Orangette recipe for hasselback potatoes, a simple baked salmon (for me), and some lemon garlic asparagus, which is a specialty of Ryan's. Herb butter really pulled everything together, with its plucky, herby, creamy goodness. It's a wonderfully versatile sauce you can easily play around with for different recipes.
This is the recipe I used tonight, which is really just a groundwork that can be modified and multiplied as necessary. Measurements are not exact, as it's all to taste.
Herb Butter
adapted from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
4 tbsp. of unsalted butter (you can also use salted), room temperature
1 heaping tablespoon of fresh chopped chives
1 heaping tablespoon of fresh chopped basil
a squeeze of a quarter lemon
sea salt & fresh ground pepper
a pinch of cayenne
Mix all the above together in a small bowl or ramekin until fully mixed, adjusting salt and lemon juice to taste. Feel free to double the recipe and store (covered) away in the fridge for later use.Labels: foodie call, losangeles
Friday, June 06, 2008
A Work On Progress, Kara Walker
In the vein of my last entry, I'm going to try and catch Kara Walker's show at the Hammer before it closes this weekend. Her paper cut out silhouettes are amazing, and the movement! Oh the incredible life in her figures!
Have a delightful weekend, friends.Labels: arts+crafts, losangeles
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Learning to Love Los Angeles
I'll admit that I'm always disemboweling Los Angeles for its (many, many) faults. There are so many things to hate here: the traffic; the air quality; the sense of entitlement; the wannabe actors/models who don't work/eat; the asshole landlords/apartment management companies; the crippling reliance on cars; that describing distances goes something like this: "it takes half an hour without traffic, but two hours with". Because when is there no traffic in Los Angeles?
Whew. I have to stop myself before I get worked up. There are things that I do love about living in L.A. that is unique to this city. The Hollywood Bowl. The Industry, lame as it is, it still gives me a quiet, inner thrill to see famous people at events. The expansive diversity. The 101 through Hollywood, passing the Capitol Records building and the Hollywood Tower. Not losing sense of the belonging: the amazing Natural History Museum, becoming members of the Zoo, hiking in the hills of Malibu. So here's to another summer in this beautiful, deeply flawed city. Don't we all want to be loved despite our ugly parts?
I've noticed that there are many blogs dedicated to living and loving San Francisco, New York, Brooklyn, Portland, Seattle, Paris, London, the list goes on...but I can't seem to find any that truly romanticize Los Angeles in the same way. There are hipster and art blogs, but nothing to Lady Angeles herself. Point me in the direction of some; in the meantime I'll break out my Polaroid One to capture the skirts of this place I call home.
Summer To Do List:
- have wine and cheese picnics at the Bowl during the summer music series
- watch a film in the Hollywood Cemetery
- see Jon Brion play at the Largo on a Friday night
- go to the drive-in at the Santa Monica Pier
- spend a day reading on the sand
- have a photo shoot at Venice BeachLabels: losangeles
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Define Natural
R and I went to the Natural History Museum on Sunday, and ran into my family there! My six year old cousin is visiting the States for the first time (he lives in Taiwan), and is obsessed with dinosaurs. He was thoroughly entertained by the human-puppet dinosaurs that the museum had stomping around, while I was thoroughly unsettled.
At my parents' house, he's poured through all of my brother's old dinosaur books -- are little boys all this predictable? With each generation of flashy new toys, boys still gravitate towards the same childhood hallmarks. Well, at least little boys tend to grow out of their dinosaur phases...while some little girls grow well into women who are still in their princess phase.Labels: growing up, losangeles
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Los Angeles Zoo
Labels: losangeles
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Surreal World
{Photo from the L.A. Times}
These past few days have been surreal in southern California; starting with spending Sunday at Disneyland, with 60 mph winds. The cube-trimmed trees near It's A Small World wobbled like Jell-o monsters in the wind. My allergies went wild, my face pretty much swelled closed by the end of the night -- if only I could have documented all of this for you. If only I didn't accidentally drop Ryan's camera at the beginning of our trip!
Without pictures, it seems hard to really illustrate the surreal world happening around here. It got me thinking about the impact of words, of how this blog used to be a journal that used to illustrate this life in words. Maybe, for my purposes, there needs to be a revival of those words. Of my own words, not for work, not for applications, not for manuscripts, but for practice. So let's just imagine.
The wildfires are all over the media, and rightly so since 500,000 people have been affected by this state of emergency -- and what's more surreal is the statistics that state 0% containment. And yet, here I am, going to work daily in an air-conditioned office in Santa Monica, with the skies only betraying the illusion of perfect summer days by the diaphanous veil over the sun. It could pass as a particularly smoggy day in LA. The evenings are August-warm, but the span of night sky are lit up in the distance with an orange glow.
And the reality is that there are fires near my parents' house, near my many friends in San Diego, and even 12 miles from work and home -- while in my own little pod of metro LA, it's business as usual. Oh, but with lighter traffic.Labels: losangeles
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Hello Fall!
As you may have heard through the interweb or the collective hum of bitching and moaning coming from Los Angeles this weekend, it was clay-oven-hot. So hot that most of Gina's visit was spent seeking out giant air-conditioned spaces. Turns out, everything in this goddamn town is OUTSIDE so that we may enjoy the gorgeous blue-skied mid-70s weather 90% of the year. We went to the Pasadena City College Flea Market on Sunday morning, and I do believe that was the most miserable heat I'd ever been in. I bake cakes in lower temperatures!
Speaking of cakes, we baked Nigella's Sour Cream Chocolate Cake over the weekend, and it was gloriously delicious. I'll upload some pictures once I get that darned internet thing hooked up at my apartment on September Eleventh. Have I emphasized how I can't wait for this day enough?
Let me make you a list of all the things that will happen/have happened before The Day Internet Is Bestowed Upon Apartment #6, and how I can't take any pictures of it to share with all my friends-through-the-wire UNTIL THEN:
- a newly decorated apartment!
- a cute clay owl that Ryan brought back for me from his trip to Arizona!
- cute clothes from the flea market!
- starting Life Drawing & Advanced Drawing classes this weekend!
- LA River Tour!
But it's all probably for the better so that I can focus on really riding this wave of Autumnal motivation and start studying for the GREs on my own and working on my novel again. I LOVE fall and the feeling of all the glorious new books to study and school supplies galore.
I'll end with this picture Gina took at a yard sale over our extra hot Labor Day weekend. I didn't even realize this was me until I said to myself (while musing over the pictures she posted this morning), that girl has my dress!
But really, who doesn't have this dress if they go to American Apparel and have $36? Though I must confess, it hung at the back of my closet gathering dust bunnies for the greater part of the past three years until I saw this amazing video with at least 15 different ways to wear this dress.Labels: fashion love, losangeles
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Under The Black Light
No one ever expects a move to be smooth, but the unpredictability of all the bumps in the road is the really stressful part. Among the many bumps in the road to our new apartment is spontaneously deciding to move earlier overnight than later in a week, mean notes under windshields from rude neighbors that was because of a confusion propagated by the wretched management company, and the delayed installation date for our internet currently set for September 11. Yuck. So I will be rather disconnected for the next three weeks, which involve more moving, adopting a dog (!), and a much anticipated visit from a best friend across the country.
I will, however, try to stay connected by sharing all the lovely things I'm finding online to feather my new nest with including this singing bird cage:
Completely useless, and utterly irrelevant in about 2 years when the bird trend passes, but still irresistibly charming! Maybe as a present to myself to chirp up my desk at work (bad pun fully intended).
Or perhaps this squirrel tray, since we are leaving behind our squirrelly friends:
Gaudy but cute.
And of course, this sea urchin box set that I have been coveting forever, from the inexplicably adorable Curiosity Shoppe!
Along with hunting for adorable finds online to take a break from work, I'm also obsessed with playing Scrabble with my office mate on Facebook. I used to hate Scrabble, but it's actually not half bad when the computer does the adding up of points for you!
What have you been up to, dear friends?Labels: covet, losangeles
Sunday, August 05, 2007
I'm A Cuckoo
August just feels like a Belle & Sebastian month to me, how about you? We spent a great chunk of the weekend apartment-hunting, somewhat unfruitfully. It's so exhausting to keep the faith among so many craphole places and jerky landlords/managers. Renting in Los Angeles is also a stressful war game -- so many good places are rented within a few hours of its posting. I wonder if renting is this hard in cities like, say, Topeka or Salt Lake City.
We also ate out all weekend since the heat plus last week's discovery of flour mites in the pantry has quelched any desire to cook in my tiny apartment kitchen. How quickly eating out becomes a chore, like on vacations or cruise ships. Part of eating out included this day-glo pink Simpsons donut from 7-Eleven! Oh life imitating art makes life that much better. My tooth ached at first sight, and that's how I knew I needed to have it. It's even more sugary than most donuts. It's that good.
The highlight of the weekend was playing with the dogs and cats at the Lange Foundation on a whim. Sadly, I think I'm still slightly allergic to cats and we have to wait til next month to adopt a dog.
More artwork to come this week; apartment hunting has taken a lot of my time along with printing final projects for Illustrator class! Til then, friends!Labels: foodie call, losangeles, things i hate
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Painted Pink Sunsets
Happy August. Enjoy all the sunsets left in the summer.Labels: losangeles, photolog
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Olvera Street
Since we haven't really seen Los Angeles since moving here last September, we're spending our weekends bunkered in the city really enjoying all the color and flavor that high rents and heavy traffic afford you!
We went to Olvera Street and Chinatown in between scouting out neighborhoods for the pending apartment move. Olvera Street was so ripe with colors and chock full of Mexican tourist kitsch tchotchkes. The colors are just SO vibrant, it's almost overload for all your rods (or cones, I can't remember which sees color).
On a side note, I really love the Not For Tourists (NFT) guidebooks; they really help you adjust in your first year living in any place. How else would you know to park at the Hollywood & Highland complex for $2 instead of in the clusterfuck stacked parking dirt lots for $15 when going to the Hollywood Bowl?Labels: losangeles
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Shaken and Stirred
Ryan & I saw Ratatouille tonight, and it would be fair to say we both loved it. Which summer film could have been more perfect for me -- two of the things I love most in this world: food and Paris! The food was so beautifully rendered and painted, that even in the 3d animated world, it looked absolutely delicious. Prepare yourself a basket full of gruyere, emmental, grapes, wine and a baguette for the picnic you'll crave after this film. In fact, that's what I'm preparing for our next foray out to the Hollywood Bowl for their infamous $1 seats in the summer season.
We saw the Decemberists play with the LA Philharmonic on Saturday night, and sadly forgot our wine and cheese. The guy next to me, however, brought enough pot for all of us. He was even polite enough to offer some. The Decemberists were beautiful live under the stars in the Hollywood hills, and there were many moments where I just looked up and breathed in the only-slightly-smoggy-air, and thought how truly nice it is to live here. They say (I don't know if "they" really say this, but I do know that Summer Pierre does) that the first year of living somewhere is always the worst. With 10 months down, I'm starting to really feel at home.
Now here are some drawings I did in my moleskine that I mentioned earlier.
Caramel Apple Girl
Popsicle Girl
Librarian Girl
Hope you all had a fantastic weekend too, friends!Labels: artsy girl, losangeles
Sunday, June 10, 2007
From the Weekend
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" -- Kurt VonnegutLabels: good things, losangeles, quotes
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Magenta on the Brain
Also known as Coxcomb, but it's much more interesting to call it My Brain on Open Examination (picked up at the Farmer's Market today). I do love bizarre flowers.
In a completely unrelated note, here are my summer goals:
1. Do 1 month's worth of short stories prompted by 3 AM Epiphany
2. Read 6 books (or more!)
3. Participate in Illustration Friday!
4. Learn Illustrator
5. Take life drawing
6. Develop online photography & illustration portfolio
7. Start a novel draft
8. Read (and possibly do) The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
9. See a bunch of good films
10. Write/illustrate a children's book
I just (finally!) bought a scanner, which I should be receiving tomorrow. I am beyond excited because this means so many things in terms of developing as an illustrator! I'm also very (geekily) excited because I just put three books on hold that will be available for pick-up at my local library. Say what you will about the cons of L.A., but I'll be happy as long as the public library stays amazing!Labels: lists, losangeles, photolog
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Favorite Evenings
Sometimes there is nothing better at the end of a long work day than curling up with a hot bowl of soup and really good magazine. In today's case, it was Amy's Organic Thai Coconut soup and the new June/July issue of Jane featuring Zooey Deschanel on the cover. I'm so happy to see that Jane is once again featuring amazing girls, instead of the sloppy lot of covers its been trotting around lately. The photo shoot with Zooey is incredible too; she's so frickin adorable (in person too!)
If there's one thing I'm getting out of this living in overpriced apartments and dense traffic, it will be the chance to namedrop as much as I'd like!Labels: losangeles, photolog
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
For the moment, I'm enjoying 8pm sunsets and 75F evenings. It's lead me to rediscover simple pleasures like the public library. After work yesterday, Ryan & I walked two blocks (much to my protest in the beginning, as two blocks in my urban terrain meant up a steep hill and over an interstate freeway overpass) to our local library, where we both filled out applications for our shiny new Los Angeles Public Library cards. Then I collected an armful of hardcover books I can't wait to crack, including:
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith
- The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
- The Nanny Diaries by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus (necessary fluff)
All the potential for the impending summer is too exciting to nail down.Labels: books, lists, losangeles, twentysomething
Sunday, May 06, 2007
No one mourns the Wicked...
I saw Wicked for the first time tonight at the Pantages Theater, and it was so very good! Quite a departure from the novel, which in some parts made more sense. Can anyone tell me what the oversized puppet characters were when Glinda and Elphaba were visiting Oz?Labels: losangeles
Monday, April 09, 2007
Ready, Set, Spring!
I feel a little overwhelmed, mostly in a positive way, lately. I don't know if it's all this peek-a-boo spring weather and my growing anxiety for warm summer days, or if it is the feeling of Friggin'-Finally!-a-job-I-like! and the exciting influx of ideas that come with routine. I don't know if this makes any sense, but it all comes down to the quote about commitment I posted a few days ago. Even though I found it on a Starbucks cup (how LA am I now), this quote only makes more sense every time I read it. Now that I'm happy where I rest my feet from 9-to-5, I've started to dream about all the projects I want to embark on with my free time.
Among these is starting the 3AM Epiphany writing group up again, based on the book of the same name. Please join me if you're a writer or if you dabble in writing for fun!
I'm also starting a short story anthology project entitled Anthologie with my talented friend Gina, participating in two more swaps (including Marta's mellow+yellow swap) and developing a new photography&illustration portfolio website for my work. And speaking of such, can anyone recommend a decent-to-good scanner for artwork?
Along with thinking up too many ways to spend my time, I've also been having fun exploring more of LA. This past weekend, I explored a terrible karaoke place (Karaoke Bleu on Sawtelle, do NOT go here unless you want to live by rules that dictate how you spend your money there) and one really great bar (Cha Cha Lounge in Silverlake, progeny of the one in Seattle). Cha Cha had a photobooth (with unfortunately bad chemical fix, so your photos will come out yellowed BUT STILL WORTH IT) and two foosball tables, along with fantastically gaudy decorations and red lighting. What more could your little hipster heart want? Oh yeah and after having so many hit-or-misses in my misadventures around LA in just the past seven months, I'm going to start tracking and reviewing the places I (a) am mad about spending money at, or (b) will make a new staple in my life.
So far:
Karaoke Bleu: F
Cha Cha Lounge: A-Labels: arts+crafts, losangeles, spring, twentysomething
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Weekend Update
- Finished VDay swap gift and wrapped it up to send tomorrow
- Received fabulous VDay swap gift!
- Sweet Getty picnic date despite the cold grey weather
- Completed Marker Rendering homework/went to Marker Rendering Class
- Watched Idlewild and Tuck Everlasting
- Missed surprise date because of haircut
- Cleaned apartment
- Went to Lisa's School Daze opening at Reform School
- Found Mala, a great bar in Silverlake
- Cleaned apartment
- Got a hurrcut
Now so much more to do in this busy week; I don't know that I'm doing much in changing gears to a slower life. But I am trying harder to notice that this life is a beautiful one.Labels: lists, losangeles, photolog
Sunday, January 21, 2007
The Rememberlings and Things.
I'm becoming so obsessed with my new Pro Flickr account. Which definitely means good things for my photo year resolution.
Today I finally got to eat at Real Food Daily, which was so good. We went to the one in West Hollywood, so of course our waiter was adorably gay. It's a good Sunday for me when it starts with a vegan brunch and a pretty gay boy. It was our goal to go to Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School today, but we missed it because I forgot how addicting Paper Source can be! I bought many beautiful papers for a top secret project I'm working on, along with finding some presents for Lacey with Ryan.
To make up for missing our dose of art for the day, we stopped by the ThinkSpace gallery to see Lola's new show, The Rememberlings. Not only is the work charming, the titles are especially clever.
Now that I'm flexing my photography skills, I've just got to up the ante on my writing practice. For now, I'm nervous about starting my new job tomorrow and the 6 million hours of commuting that will come with it. But as the wise little owl on the chalkboard in my kitchen says, "Que Sera, Sera."
Wish me luck.Labels: arts+crafts, losangeles, photolog
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Time on my mind
Last night was as A-list as promised, and overall one of the most interesting events I've been to. A few of the celebrities I met/encountered/brushed shoulders with last night: Edward Norton, Katherine Heigl, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, James Franco, David Krumholtz, Ted Danson...the list goes on and on. And today it snowed. Living in LA sure is an adventure.
I'm really nervous about starting my new job next week, and the commute that comes with it. It took me two hours to drive 12 miles yesterday, from Santa Monica to Hollywood, during afternoon rush hour. Sometimes LA isn't the kind of adventure I'd like to be on. Isn't it always about the love/hate relationship with big cities?
With all these new changes and big events coming about, I'm craving time to whittle away as I please. Time to read Domino, Real Simple, and Bust, to make a dent in the 22 books I'm reading this year, to write, to follow the course in Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain, to think and design projects for loved ones, to watch all the films on my Netflix queue. Remind me of this the next time I'm feeling like I'm in a rut because I have a daily routine, k? Thanks, friend.
Today a third grade girl at 826LA asked if she could read to me. I was more than happy to oblige, eager to hear the story of a bunny and beaver detectives. After she read each page, she would pause for a few moments to look at the illustrations. She did this the whole way through the book. I'm going to start adapting her way of looking at things; sometimes the question really becomes who is the role model for who.
Don't forget to de*lurk (brought to my attention by Lisa at Birdinthehand). Please click on comments and say hello, and tell me a little about yourself. I'm curious about who you are, what you like, what you dislike, what your favorite food is, how you keep warm in the snow and other things of that nature.Labels: losangeles, twentysomething
Monday, December 04, 2006
"Trusting people is nice sometimes."
Apologies for being MIA recently. A lot has been happening in shaking up my little snowglobe corner of LA, and I'm happily stimulated to say the least.
First a little tidbit -- Anthropologie had an incredible sale on Black Friday; I bought several things (including the above skirt) on an assistant-in-LA's budget. I know. Mark your calendars for next year.
Last Wednesday, I taught a workshop at 826LA with my fellow intern Stacey, where we had a wonderful turnout (we scrambled to make more books as two unexpected students showed up!) It was so fun, albeit exhausting, to teach a group of excited kids how to crochet cozies for their books. And so fun to work more closely with other interns and volunteers!
At work on Monday, we had received a call at the office to facilitate an event on Friday for Corinne Bailey Rae, whose music as you know I'd been adoring since the summer. Yes, as in in four days Friday. Although a little chaotic and subject to some miscommunication, we pulled it off and it was incredible to meet and then sit in on a SoundCheck session with CBR - she is so sweet and talented. I loved her delicate yet powerful voice, with a hollow edge that sounds like crackling firewood in early winter.
Last night, Ryan and I went to MOCA's Skin+Bones exhibit. We had a minor incident where both of us had no cash for the cash/check only parking lot in the middle of downtown LA. But the parking attendant let me park and pay him after visiting the ATMs upstairs, based on the fact I'm trustworthy because "you're a lady". (Did he not notice the 6'5" male in the passenger seat?) When we went to pay him, he seemed surprised.
He said, in his wide-eyed accented English, "Oh, you're back so quickly?"
As I gave him my twenty and he found change, he remarked slowly, thoughtfully, "Trusting people is nice sometimes."
That was incredibly refreshing to hear in a place like LA, for a cynical girl like me.Labels: 826LA, losangeles, photolog
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Doomcave Daydreams and Square Foot by Foot
Last night Ryan and I went to Camille Rose Garcia's show at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery yesterday, and it was full of bright, adorably grotesque creatures.
Then this afternoon we went to the Sq. Ft. show at ThinkSpace Gallery, full of more amazing hip young artists. Going to galleries inspires me to start pursuing my own art education; without the weight of tuition or homework at the moment.
We also stopped by Madame Matisse, and although I wanted to stop by the Reform School since we were at Sunset Junction, we didn't get a chance after driving through Griffith Park (yay picnics and pony drawings and merry-go-rounds and light festival trips to come). I had an incredible beet and apple salad, Ryan had their famous blueberry pancakes, and it was an adorable atmosphere as we sat among cattails out in the sidewalk dining area.
Tonight, we're going to make tacos, watch more Season 6 of Gilmore Girls and I'm going to do some paintings. FINALLY. Hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving Weekend as well!Labels: arts+crafts, losangeles, photolog
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Flea Markets & Bird Calls
Ryan and I went to the Melrose Trading Post this morning, which is way sweeter than the Rose Bowl Flea Market. Entrance is $1 (show your student ID) and some proceeds go to the school.
Overall everything is cheaper and more open to bargaining, though I didn't partake in much of it (I'm such a chicken).
I'm collecting frames and art for my walls, and though I decided to try and cluster black frames, I couldn't turn down that really lovely olive and gold frame for $1, or that Art Nouveau print of Sarah Bernhardt for $10. Mostly I'm trying to collect meaningful/favorite prints/drawings/paintings or doing my own or framing Ryan's. I'll take a picture when more things go up on my wall. I also bought two boxes with tiny paintings of zebras, deers, and tigers, one to use as a sewing box.
The picture of the horses through the frame is actually the cover of a book called The Personality Of the Horse (also $1!) which Ryan is using as a sketchbook, despite discovering it is an amazing collection of stories about horses, including The Red Pony by John Steinbeck. Now he feels guilty because he always makes fun of me for cutting up old books and reconstructing them into journals/using them for art.
After the flea market, we also dropped by Giant Robot 2 to take a peek at Susie Ghahremani's show Bird Call. I can't believe how small some of her pieces are, and they look even more charming and endearing in person.
It's my goal in the next four years here in LA to develop a life as an artist and have my own shows in one of the little galleries that line this city.
Oh! I almost forgot -- I also cut all my hair off again. Sooo much more liberating. That's it, have a splendid rest of your Sunday!Labels: arts+crafts, losangeles, photolog
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Peace Out, Halloween!
I am fully Halloween'd out. Friday night, I dressed up as the Queen of Hearts and got pathetically drunk off of half a beer (I have the tolerance of a 5 year old, okay?? and I haven't had a drink since June!) at the CalArts party. Saturday day, there was a Rocket Science workshop @ 826LA, where I got to wear a labcoat (!!!) and play on a Wacom tablet. That night we went to the Mommy, Mommy, There's a Monster Under My Bed! opening reception, which was also like a fun Halloween party. I am LOVING LA and all its little galleries. There's an opening reception somewhere every single night. We left early however, because Ryan got pretty ill and then spent the rest of the night vomitting, the poor boy. On Sunday, I really wanted to see The Prestige, but the debacle as mentioned below happened.
Yesterday, I dressed up as The Girl With The Black Ribbon (easily transitioning from work to play, as pictured above). I went to 826LA for a surprisingly low Drop-In population, then headed home to start cooking for Monica & Justin coming over for a small apartment warming (is 2 months too long to wait for that?). I made spinach & parmesan ravioli and shrimp with vodka sauce, yams with butter and brown sugar, a salad, and finished off with tiramisu. Monica brought a burgandy wine for dinner, and then a German white wine for dessert (which was DELICIOUS!). Then I experienced my first time carving a pumpkin! I gave mine sweet eyelashes, Justin gave his a dimple, and Monica made Jack Skellington. We ended the night falling asleep to The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Now I'm ready to move onto the next holiday...my birthday!Labels: losangeles, photolog
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