Aerial Los Angeles, Part 3

Soul Mirrors!!

About a month ago I had a brain explosion (a good thing!) that lead to altering what I previously did with this drawing... the result has been a series of painted eyes on boards with various types of mirrors in place of the pupils...With the idea of the eyes being the windows to one's soul (or whatever way you would like to represent the concept of the eyes giving one more insight into a person & their emotions and creating connection) combined with a mirror (sometimes flat and sometimes giving a more distorted reflection), the result is turning this idea into a more self reflective activity. The colorful eyes draw one in and then act as a prompt combined with the mirror that urges one to carry out this connection and activity with themselves as well.

SO MUCH LOVE and ENJOYMENT in creating these!! Plus, they just look cool.

Smallest is 8x8 and largest is 12 x 12 inches. All acrylic on wood. The bottom 2 also include glow in the dark accents.

People of Ciclavia in Pasadena, Part 1, May 31 2015

More people of Ciclavia, this time in Pasadena! All were shot with my Yashica Mat 124G on Lomography 100 speed 120 film.

 

I love how happy people are at Ciclavia! And how many groups of people seem to be enjoying themselves in general while visiting new places and getting exercise....just by closing down a relatively small number of miles of streets! How does this not happen weekly or monthly yet?!?!!

Thank you to everyone who let me shoot your photo!

Pasadena Chalk Festival 2015, Instant

One thing I've enjoyed going to over the years is the Pasadena Chalk Festival. It takes place on open concrete areas in the Paseo Colorado, an outdoor mall in the Old Town area of Pasadena, not too far from the City Hall. Although I have visited the festival while it's actually taking place when it coincided with the Make Music Pasadena festival, I have to say I enjoy visting on Monday after the festival better when it comes to being able to appreciate the art. Every year there's certain themes that reappear or a variety of pop culture or current event references (this year there was a Beyonce and Jenner before/after as well as some mentions of South Carolina.)

This week I actually went to work early and stayed in Pasadena a bit late just to look at the chalk drawings. Finding them all is a little like a scavenger hunt as some are downstairs in different courtyards and other are across the street in front of the Civic Center while others are hiding upstairs in little hallways (awesome for sitting in the sun all day drawing, awesome for not getting stepped on/ruined as quickly, crappy for number of visitors.) Anyway, I took along my instax mini among other cameras and shot a few photos.

I'm such a sucker for birds, especially when they are Amazon type parrots & they have crazy rainbow eyes!

(oh man! I've been working on some awesome paintings of eyes that I am excited to finish up & share!)

Summer Delights

Yay! Happy Summer to the northern hemisphere! Of course I love the days filled with many hours of sunlight.. enough that I can wake up in the morning to the sunrise (instead of waking up hours before, as what happens in the winter, even here in Los Angeles) and still have a couple of hours of sunlight to do things in the evening. And the warmth and activities like swimming that become infinitely more enjoyable. But of course I can't help but to feel excited about the bounty of summer foods, especially when I start out my first official day of summer by biking to the farmers market and selecting some delicious foods for the week. A little hint of some of the great things I've been getting this year and this week.

So many delicious organic stone fruits!!! I feel silly in that I've been going to this one particular family owned farm stand at the Studio City farmers market for years getting their stone fruits, but I don't recall the name (need to try to note it next week), but they have such a wide and constantly changing variety of stone fruits, especially at this time of the year.

I wander around the stand and pick up anything that looks good (although I always love the donut peaches & yellow nectarines.) I also try to get some ripe, ready to eat immediately fruits as well as fruits that need a few more days so I have them to eat all week long (don't store peaches in the fridge!!!!) This week I picked up apricots (normal & black), a few types of plums, donut and regular yellow nectarines and regular white nectarines... and there were still many varieties of things I didn't get. I love that they're organic as well since peaches and other stone fruits are generally at the top of the EWG dirty dozen list (product with high levels of pesticides.)

I much prefer non-red varieties of tomatoes and so I really enjoy these little ones from the farmers market. The stand I picked these up at has bins of rainbow colored baby tomatoes that vary throughout the summer with reds, oranges, yellows, greens, purple and multi-colored in one, all ready for you to scoop and combine and make your own yummylicious tomato mix to snack on or add to salads. So sweet, tart, juicy and generally flavorful, these are the kind of tomatoes that have never been in a fridge and will never go in one so that they might be fully appreciated! I also love the smell of the fresh green tops on the tomatoes (I can't be the only one!!) The next best thing to having my own tomato plants!

A bit of a cheat when it comes to technical summer (although the weather here in LA has been weird this year.... supposedly we had a reverse spring where the avg temp in March was greater than April, which was greater than May, which has only happened a few times before, which has made plants go a little nuts), but yesterday I found fresh organic strawberries super on sale, so I picked up 3lbs and made some strawberry jam! I didn't process the jars, but I'm giving some away and might also stick a jar in the freezer for later. Yummmmm! I used a low-sugar, no pectin recipe with a bit of extra vanilla because I love vanilla.

Downtown LA Saturday Afternoon

This past weekend I made a trip to the far east to visit a friend that I haven't seen for a few months after a new baby was born. Getting there was part train and part walking and park carpooling and required an early departure. As it turns out, when you go out early on Saturday morning, sometimes you see people running around the park in giant inflated balls.

The visit was enjoyable and made me a little sad I don't live closer, but I'm glad we were able to make it out. Joy!

On my way home on the Gold Line train, I decided to get off at the Little Tokyo/Art District stop to wander as much as possible during my 2 hour free Metro transfer window. I first wandered over to the arts district to look at the randomness in the streets. I must admit that I love wandering in this type of place because it seems like there are surprises everyplace if you're willing to pay attention.

 From far away, this just appeared to be a pole wrapped in tires. Only once I got closer did I notice the comical, exaggerated featured faces sculpted from the tires and other bits!

 I feel like in the last 6-12 months I've seen these types of little free book libraries all over the place!

 

So part of the reason I wanted to get off at the Little Tokyo station was to visit the Daiso in the area. I found the store and saw some things I wanted to pick up, but the line was crazy long and in the end, I wasn't really in a line-standing mood. I might after work one day while it's still summer/light in the evening.

Then from Daiso, I walked through Skid Row to get to the Toy District. The street I was on wasn't bad, but all the parallel streets were filled with tents even during the day. The street itself I was on had an amazing number of shops similar to that above with smoking type accessories.

Do you have these where you live? People place mannequins (sometimes mechanical ones that move their arms) outside of their shops holding advertisement signs.

 Painting the street to look more like a plaza as part of the road diet that happened on Broadway in Downtown LA.

Ciclavia Pasadena - Black and White Memories

bass player from viceversa

All shot with a Yashica-Mat 124g w/ Arista Black & White 400 film during the Pasadena Ciclavia, May 31, 2015.

Previous Pasadena Ciclavia photos
Previous Ciclavia Photos