Downtown Dia de Los Muertos 2015 - Holga

Since this is Halloween weekend, the Downtown Dia de Los Muertos Alters and Art in downtown LA in the Grand Park are going up today! The joys of film mean I never posted these photos I took of some of the alters + more going on last year that I shot with my Holga. Not sure if I am going to head down today (the Grand Ave All Access thing is also going on again), but at least my photos from last year are seasonally relevant again!

 

Harry Potter - Universal Studios Instax

I went to Universal Studio Hollywood earlier this week.... considering I've gone before, really the most interesting part was the new Harry Potter stuff. It's weird because I live in the area around Universal and bike/walk a lot in the area and so I see all these things appear up on this giant hill near me (new Universal attractions), but the Harry Potter stuff is definitely placed in such a way that it's right at the center of your view from a variety of streets in the surrounding area (including from the Warner Brother's Studios in nearby Burbank...) Some days it does look rather surreal when there's fog or clouds....Although the buildings were cool to look at, my friend and I lamented that it feels like a fun place to explore with very limited options for exploring. Ho hum.

All of these were shot with the Instax Neo-Classic instant film camera.

the fake snow weirded me out so much. It freezes sometimes in the area, butttt I can't say I've ever seen something like this. So it's weird to be walking around in 80 degree temps in October seeing this....

October 16, Monthly Visitors

I'm going to be blunt. Some people are going to be disgusted by this and frankly, if menstrual blood or generally people talking of such things disturbs you, please, stop reading now. For real. Stop. Stop. STOP.





Ok. So every month my body helps fill this little cup with some bloody bits for a couple days. And for a few days here I have this tissue, remnants of my uterus preparing my body for another month of something that's not happening. There's something very primitive about sitting with a cup of your blood (ok.. admittingly, I suppose knowing the names of all my body parts, not being culturally conditioned/scared of my body already is putting me in a different category than some people, but I really encourage people to get familiar with what is going on with their own bodies!!!!! I am not one to be disturbed by such things.) There's something a little weird about knowing what pain was involved in producing it. I think I first painted with my menstrual blood at least 15 years ago, but those are hidden away and have never seen any eyes but my own.

I've been wanting to paint again with it for a while and this month, I finally got to it. I didn't use all the blood, but these were done over the course of a couple days. For now at least as long as I'm doing paintings of faces, I'm calling this series "monthly visitors", which I like as it both refers to one of the culturally acceptable ways of acknowledging a menstrual period as well as a weird reflection on the people that my uterus and body have NOT produced over the years. Instead I'm using that non-people creating material to create artistic representations of people. So creating people in my own way.  I used a wet on dry technique for these 3 paintings.

No humans or animals were harmed in the production of this art.

re:love Park Painting

This past weekend I decided to venture out to the re:love park series for the afternoon. Armed with my kindle & watercolor supplies, I sprawled out in the grass (a rarity living in an apartment in a city!) listened to some good music, finished a book and started a new one and worked on 2 paintings! I really appreciate that I was able to just do my own thing in my own introverted way, even if I wish I had spoken to more people! Yay! Thanks!

Pretty sunset clouds at Woodley Park during re:love!

Burning Man 2016 - Crows!

While exploring before Burning Man even started this year, I came across this group of crows in deep playa! They were fantastic for so many reasons! Crows are actually one of the few animals you'll see on the playa while out at Burning Man, often in small groups, sometimes just chilling out beyond the trash fence, taunting you with their freedom (there are always stowaway animals, both intentional and non-intentional during Burning Man... I've also seen rabbits.. but anyway, crows.) They were huge and so fun and realistic! (later in the week, they all had colorful peanuts placed around them or in their beaks.) In normal life I get excited when I see a murder of crows chilling and doing their thing in a yard, street or lot, so to say the least, I really loved this art piece!!


First 3 photos shot w/ Holga

human comparison!

Holga Week Extras 1

Back at the end of July was Holga Week - a week to celebrate the Holga toy camera (RIP) and shoot! As part of it, some people hosted a contest, which I managed to remember and make time for before running off to Burning Man in August. Well, last week I found out that I was one of the winners! How awesome!?!

 Overall, I must admit I was pretty happy with my Holga Week roll of film. I used a 35mm Holga with some of the closeup/macro holga (plastic) filters. I mostly shot it while walking around during lunch (work from home!) Anyway, I couldn't submit everything to the contest, so here's a few more....

CicLAvia #19 10/16/2016, Heart of LA

Today was the 6th Anniversary CicLAvia event (first was 10/10/10!!), once again in downtown LA. I don't know what else to say besides it's still awesome, it's still great to see so many people out (although, I feel like after so many events, especially some that have repeated so many times, it would be really nice to have more miles of streets shut down!) Some of the novelty has worn off, but there's something to be said about it feeling.... normal. CicLAvia should feel normal.

As for me, I did the route and hung around for a few hours and then went off for different adventures....

The start of the mystery writing... it was so faint in the street outside MacArthur Park and I couldn't figure out if it was a case of "let's cover up the graffiti with a slightly off color so the original message is less visible, but still visible" or what.... clearly, there was a message about CO2 there.

at this point, I knew this writing was being created for the event....

aannnnnddd here we have the source of the writing! I ended up talking to the guy riding the bike right in front of the fire engine w/ blue shirt & a hat on. There was a water tank on a trailer on the back of his bike and it had a mechism attached that  would squirt out a mist of water in measured ways to write temporary messages as he was biking.

this guy had a box of doughnuts on his back??

There was a large amount of political things going on at this CicLAvia in particular, which wasn't surprising given the closeby election... I like that CicLAvia is a place where people feel comfortable doing things like this!

at the Los Angeles Theater

box office at the Los Angeles theater on Broadway

pretty sure I've shot this photo many times before... I think with my Diana

desserts to pretty to eat (although, if you do go for these, I suspect they are sold as aphrodisiacs.....)

....and this is where I deviate from the CicLAvia path! 

oh Los Angeles... you still have so much to learn and improve despite all these CicLAvias... even on something like this bike  lane on Venice with a huge buffer, there's no sidewalk on the street????