MY FIRST BAY AREA POST // The City We Love . . . But Will Never Live In

Last weekend, I went to the SFMoMA Countdown Celebration with some of my best buds Tiff and Joyce. We took these photos while waiting for our friends Sarah and Jon to join us after watching The Clock.  I'm so jealous they saw it- props to them for being the legit art fans who waited the insane line to see it. 
More photos to come later, but these made me so happy I couldn't help but post them first. Was such a fun time! I'm still bummed that I didn't end up moving to San Francisco, but I love being able to meet up with friends there. Joyce and I were joking that even though the three of us all love San Franciso, none of us actually managed to move there (much like New York). But who knows- life is so unexpected, it's bound to happen for at least one of us eventually!

ADVENTURING AT LACMA AGAIN

My dear friend Tiffany was in town to visit, and we went to see the Caravaggio exhibit at LACMA. I hardly took any photos because we spent the majority of the time with paintings, and we weren't allowed to take any pictures. It was pretty spectacular to say the least, I wish I knew how to paint, I feel like that's one of the most legit artist skills to have.  I am so jealous that Tiff is becoming such an amazing artist, she finally showed me some of her work, and it totally took my breath away!

Here are some photos of the Walter De Maria exhibit that was right outside- gosh the light sure was pretty.    Even though this is my second time at LACMA within the last six months, I still don't think I even scratched the surface of what they have there, I still need to see Metropolis II!

Here are some photos from our first visit  if you missed those!

MY CAMERA'S FIRST WORDS // A Sibling Bonding Trip in Seattle

So, nope, no camera still, but since my last post was about my camera's "last words" I thought I'd share some of the first pictures I took with my camera during a trip to Seattle that I made with my brothers 2 years ago. It's one of my favorite memories in life, and I'm so glad we did it. At first we almost didn't go because we weren't sure how financially practical it would be at that time, but we scoured the internet for cheap tickets and booked a really terrible hotel in an obscure city outside of Seattle to stay at for $30 a night and went for it. The hotel was pretty hilariously bad, but it's become one of those memories we just bust out in belly aching laughter whenever we refer to it.

When I was little, I always wished I had a sister, but my brothers were totally worth not having sisters. We were all born one year apart, and literally did everything together whether we liked it or not. Sure we had drama/fights/issues, but it also made us super close. There's nothing I'd ever want to change about it, and I'm so thankful for family.

Here are some places we visited. (We also visited a ton of other incredible places like the Space Needle, the Seattle Public Market, and even saw Jonathan Safran Foer give a lecture on his book Eating Animals. But this post is getting really long, so I think I'll save those for another day.)

OFF THE SIDE OF THE FREEWAY PICTURES





Our first tourist destination was actually the side of the highway. Just driving around in Seattle was so beautiful and we couldn't resist getting out of the car and looking around. I'm not sure if it's because I've gotten so used to the freeways in LA, but I was just so in awe of all the trees and nature everywhere. The sky and the clouds were so moody and beautiful. The colors are just different, and the air is so clean. And it's quiet- so quiet!


SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY







The Seattle Public Library! This was one of my favorite buildings when I was in college, and I could hardly believe I actually got to visit it in person. It was amazing, pictures cannot do it justice.  (If you are unfamiliar with the building, here is one of my favorite TED talks given by Joshua Prince Ramus about the project.)



SEATTLE ART MUSEUM







The Seattle Art Museum was another place we visited.  This is where I got inspiration for a"Clothespin Deer Head" project I did a few weeks ago.  There was this humongous giant man made out of mini coke bottles.  Unfortunately, I can't remember what it is called anymore, but it really stuck with me, because in college, my professors would always talk about the concept of "part to whole" which was hard for me to understand, but the sculpture really helped me visualize it better.


EMP MUSEUM - Sky Church






So, for some reason, none of us were initially all that excited to go to the EMP museum.  But there was a flea market that was on the way, and the building was designed by Frank Gehry, so we figured, ah, what the heck, let's just go.

Upon entering, we saw the Sky Church room, which has all these crazy colors and oversized ottomans for people to lay on and look up at these changing  umbrella thingies suspended from the ceiling while Jimmy Hendrix songs kept blasting on repeat.  To be honest, it looked really gimmicky, but it was hot outside, and we were tired, and we got sucked in and literally stayed there for an hour and a half just staring off into space.  It was so addicting! These pictures always make me laugh, because you can tell that we were totally out of it.

CAR KAROKE





And last but not least, the trip was filled with countless memories just laughing, singing along to the radio and being crazy in the car. The kind stuff you'd only do with family because they still have to love you no matter how embarrassing you are.

It's kind of funny- I'm the oldest, but we made my youngest brother Geoff drive the whole time, and I sat in the back relaxing while my middle brother josh sat shotgun and gave directions. This is where the whole not having sisters thing really comes in handy- you never have to share princess privileges with anyone else!

MONDAY DATE NIGHT #3 // We finally went to LACMA!

Taylor and I haven't had a Monday date night in a really long time (since June), because we've been traveling a lot lately, so I was happy we were able to get to it this week, and even more happy that I finally got to go to LACMA! I had been dying to go for quite some time now. We kept waiting for the first Sunday of the month, because it's free admission if you have a Bank of America debit card, but somehow we still ended up not going this past Sunday.  I was so sad we didn't go that we decided to rush over after work on Monday since admission is free for LA county residents after 3:00, even if it meant the visit would be shorter.

One of the exhibitions I was most interested in seeing was the Levitated Mass  (pictured above).  After all the hype about the "340 ton rock arriving in LA" earlier this year, I have admit that I was kind of surprised at how small this guy looked! But I have to say that I still loved the exhibit. At first when you approach it, it just looks like a big rock in the middle of nowhere, but as you get closer, you realize that it's actually suspended in air with a tunnel underneath for you to walk under. A simple concept, but I loved how it plays with perception of space, location and scale.

They didn't really let us take pictures of the indoor exhibits, but the outdoor exhibits were just as fun! Here were some of the photos of the outdoor stuff (which is free all day, everyday):















There were a ton of other things that I didn't get a chance to look at and absorb. The museum is quite large. So I think I will look at this trip as more of an introduction, and I do hope to go back and spend more time with the artwork there! It's a very relaxing atmosphere and I could picture myself spending a huge chunk of a day there.

Some things I cannot believe I missed are Metropolis II, Watts Towers, and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, which was designed by one of my favorite architects, who also designed one of my favorite museums across from another one of my favorite museums, in one of my favorite cities!

OUR AFTERNOON AT THE SKIRBALL CENTER

This weekend, Taylor and I finally made a trip to the Skirball Cultural Center.  Last year they had a Maira Kalman exhibit, who I talked about in this post, that I really wanted to visit, but wasn't able to make the trip out to see.  However, now that we live literally around the corner from this place, I was excited to finally stop by.





It's a relatively small museum, but we really enjoyed the Noah's Ark and Women Hold Up Half the Sky exhibits, which I had been hearing so much about.  Taylor is half Jewish, and I grew up listening to Bible stories since I can remember, so it was also a really enriching experience for the both of us to see the Vision and Values exhibit and get an overview of ancient Jewish culture up til the migration of many Jews to the States.


NOAH'S ARK EXHIBIT
So I think it is safe to say that this was targeted towards kids, but I actually learned a lot from it.  I don't think I could count how many times I've read or listened to or watched some sort of story about Noah's Ark, but I think being in this exhibit actually made me look at the story in a new way.  When we were "inside the ark", surrounded by all these animals, I realized how crazy it must have been in there.  I think one thing that stuck with me was leaving the dark interior the ark and stepping outside to see the dove floating above our heads with the olive branch.  It must have been a moment of so much hope and fear and excitement.  






WOMEN HOLD UP HALF THE SKY
This was a visually arresting, conceptually beautiful and heart breaking exhibit.  It is based off the  book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by twice pulitzer prize journalist Nicholas D. Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn.  (Yet another Jewish guy, Chinese girl couple... I am beginning to realize how much of a cliche we are...); It was a solemn experience learning about issues of gender inequality and human rights that women around the world face.



The exhibit was covered by a canopy of white translucent plastic pockets forming a cloud-like sky, and is filled with wishes that guests of the exhibit could write down on colored pieces of paper


Amongst the many issues they discussed- sex trafficking, domestic violence to name a few, one of the things that caught my eye was this map showing where slavery exists in orange.  Couldn't help but notice that big orange blob to the left in the shape of the United States of America.  Not only that, but it turns out that most of it is actually occurring right here in Los Angeles. It reminded me of this article, that I read recently about a young woman following her heart and moving to Los Angeles to build a program to end sex trafficking in LA.

Towards the end of the exhibit, we were able to fill out cards to send to our senators and congressmen and advocate for these women. Although it seemed like such a small gesture, it was great to exercise our rights of our democracy for those that don't have any.



After that, we ended our trip by visiting the "archealogical dig".  Taylor and I were too lame to actually participate in actual digging, I just made him take a picture of me instead. haha.


All in all, it was a great experience for the both of us, and we hope to visit again!