Adele

Saw Adele, my current fav music, at the Wiltern last night. Girl's got a voice - soulful and effortless at the age of 20. In her heavy Brit accent, she's claims "e-a-James" (Etta James) as her idol. Her band, which included a four piece string section, was seriously Grammy quality, yet she played all her own acoustic guitar. I heard her as a guest on Morning Becomes Eclectic here.


This was the first time I felt so open about taking pictures at a performance, simply because everyone was doing it. Some were even phone video recording whole songs. Good for viral marketing perhaps? My how times have changed. The last time I felt old at a concert was at the Hollywood Bowl when everyone used cell phone light instead of lighters, ouch.

Some shots of the Wiltern - my favorite Art Deco theater in LA by far. Loved the hombre stripes of the balcony. Second shot shows the theater's ceiling - which from my angle looks a bit like the statue of liberty hiding in the back.

Steelwood Chair

The limited edition green Steelwood Chair by the Bouroullec Brothers at Conran Shop is perfection. First of all, this has been my favorite green for the last few years - that cool art deco, not quite mint, green. Second, I have two vintage Danish chairs with a similar shape - hi arms, but low back which means low profile, and they are the most comfortable, ergonomically correct dining chairs. Only 200 of the babies have been made!

Homemade Envelopes

Sat through two episodes of American Idol to finish making these homemade envelopes from the paper in my office recycle bin. Got the envelope template kit from Paper Source a few years back and trashed printed paper was from a bag project I was working on last year. This is called creative re-use!

I bought pretty colored adhesive labels from Paper Source to make addresses legible. Not sure if mailing through the post office will be okay, but definitely fun with a blank note card. Will test that out...

taxes

Why is dealing with taxes such a daunting task... to ease the pain, I dug out the pretty woodgrain paper clips Jon gave me. It's all about the pretty paper clips...

Domino

Mmm, I'm sad, news everywhere that Domino magazine will publish its last issue this March. Domino mag was truly love at first site. Such a great magazine dying is a sign not only of the recession, but that print is dying. I, admittedly, was one of those magazine whores who didn't let budget stop me from spending a mint at the newstand each week, finding most of my write-offs during tax time was for books and magazines. However, my efforts to be more eco-conscious and the over load of good stuff on the web, had me opting for blogs and the online version of the publications this past year. I feel a tiny bit bad that I canceled my Domino subscription last year, so let's just look at this the only way we can -- as an opportunity for new exciting, more innovative things to come?...

Chinatown

I happen to be in Chinatown for a meeting on Monday, Chinese New Year. It's the year of the ox. Pretty quiet because I think all the hooplah happened over the weekend and most are celebrating at home with their families. Lanterns are so vibrant even with grey clouds at dusk.

Art LA

Some photos I snuck from Art LA last Thursday night. We haven't been out to see art in a while so it was nice to see lots of galleries in one place. Love this plastic bag installation from Ooga Booga.

This is an amazing quilt by Anissa Mack repped by Small A Projects. This is a straight on view.
These next two are by Tim Hawkinson at the Ace Gallery booth. In the first piece, printing rollers were made from a latex impression of the artist's skin. The second piece is weaving from found cloth and other objects.

We found Carlee's piece on back of an art journal called X-tra.

Rain Clouds

A view of the city from Griffith Observatory yesterday morning. Lots of people out, despite the clouds, for some crisp clean air and a rare (for so cal) and spectacular view.

luck...

Heard a great quote this weekend...

Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

- Seneca and my dad

Muji Drawers

These two 9 drawer beauties are my attempt to control my scattered art, sewing, and craft supplies. They were on sale(!) at the Moma Store and are by Muji. I will attempt to merge items from three different locations in the house to this limited space, which has been a practice of living within my means. :0

starch based filler

Today I received my Muji drawers in this starch based, compostable filler instead of styrofoam. Yay, less guilt from ordering something that needed padding. Included was an insert about it - "it's non toxic, static free, and when exposed to hot water, the material disperses readily, and may be rinsed down the drain only if local regulations permit." They looked cheese puffs and because it's made of starch, they smelled like it too. Almost felt like taking a nibble...

Inauguration Day

The newly sworn in President Barack Obama. I've been tearing up at random moments all day. Couldn't help myself and took this snapshot of my TV screen, wishing I could be on Pennsylvania Avenue as he and Michelle Obama waved to the crowd during their 5 minutes outside the bulletproof limo in the middle of the Inaugural parade.

MLK National Day of Service

I'm usually not one to greet people like this but, today I feel compelled so Happy Martin Luther King Day! I've not had a chance to catch up on all the weekend's festivities in DC for the inauguration on Tuesday, but I did catch in AT, that today the incoming administration is call for a day of service. What an important message. Service, especially for people who you would not normally hang with, like kids, the homeless, or elderly, really grounds a person and makes one realize that the world is so much bigger than you. It's kind of the feeling I get when I'm traveling. All the fuss seems to melt away because you add perspective. I'm scheduled to cook a meal at the DWC on Wednesday night as aprt of the Cooking Club. Besides volunteering, my other motive is to just learn more in the kitchen. Just working it for me too!

"The greatest Among you shall be your Servant" - Martin Luther King

Weaving Performance Part 2

The weaving performance art piece by Julia Sherman was excellent. Thursday afternoon of the opening, I arrive to a beautiful site - 6 backstrap looms tied to thick vertical rope mounted using a pulley system that is then held down by a huge bag of what seemed like little mini boulders. Julia has wood stools for us to sit on and we start weaving at 2pm. There are about 9 of us who alternate in the afternoon shift. As we start, the plan is to weave three rows on our own neutral color yarn through and then run a bright colored common yarn through. We were to repeat this until we reached the top forming a teepee shape that I eventually learned would become the cone of power. The above pic is us at the beginning, me at the far right thinking awesome and that there's a lot of work to do!

This is a pic of Julia above. Julia's body of work rocks. And so are all her friends who documented these amazing photos. They also filmed a time lapse video which I can't wait to see.

Throughout the afternoon we adjust the number of rows, the thickness of the common thread, the way we will roll up the looms as rows are finished. Carolyn, our brilliant weaving teacher trouble shoots. Really easy going afternoon, weaving, learning about each other, laughing, troubleshooting and weaving for the handful of afternoon gallery visitors wandering through. That's me below looking way too serious.

By 5 o'clock more weavers arrive. We are little bit behind, but the serious weaving begins. At 7p we hit major problem. The cross, that part that allows us to separate one shed from another, of one of the looms has broken. Mine had broken earlier in the day, but we were able to fix it before it got bad. There were a lot of us, so I took a short break to check out some of the other gallery openings only to come back to a frenzy of renegade weaving because another loom's cross had broken. The rest of the pics below are from my phone. This is the frenzy...
Our plan was to finish at 9pm in time to unroll our weavings for the crowd and raise the cone of power. Neither Julia nor Carolyn was able to repair the cross so the decision was made to use 8 yarn bunches to make up for time and then to weave like crazy. As a crop of on lookers watched patiently, the weavers at the stools wove as fast as they could, while 3-4 of us made thick warps and then wove from the top down. It was all about improvising brilliantly, so Carolyn started adding these amazing bunches of tassels and hanging balls of yarn that she and others commented was a nod to the 70's. We all started weaving in bold warps of color. It was a mad rush and then promptly at 9 o'clock we all somehow finished in sync. Adam, Julia's right hand, pulled the stools away, unraveled the looms, anchored the bottoms with larger rocks, and the cone was raised! Success.

Really pretty piece. The pic below was taken right before leaving the gallery.

Besides the coolness of this project, I loved that I was actually able to put my weaving skills to good use and I found out that art with people as part of the medium takes a piece of work beyond the piece of work. Congrats Julia!

lights

been having fun with video lately...

Weaving Performance by Julia Sherman

I will be participating in a weaving performance piece on Thursday night put together by artist Julia Sherman. It'll be my first time in a performance piece! We will be 7 people weaving in a circle to form a cylindrical form that I think will close on the top.

We were asked to learn to weave on a backsrtap loom, a very traditional type of loom that's been around for centuries. This loom is anchored at the top by anything stable (a nail on the wall or back in the day, a tree) and then at the bottom by a strap or belt wrapped around your lower hips. Two sheds are alternately opened up by a flat thick stick wider than the width of the warp through which the warp is shuttled through. Julia dyed her own yarns and built 6 of these looms for the performance.

Here we were yesterday in Julia's studio practicing on the backstrap looms.

It all takes place at Phyllis Stein Art downtown on Thursday, January 9 around 7pm. Can't wait!

Update: Correction, it's the 8th, not the 9th and here is the official announcement. Thanks Sabine!

Event: Secret Narratives and Cone of Power
    "Reception and performance installation"
What: Performance
Host: Phyllis Stein
Start Time: Thursday, January 8 at 2:00pm
End Time: Thursday, January 8 at 10:00pm
Where: Phyllis Stein Art

Weaving starts at 2pm, but main opening will be in the evening :)

it's a new year **

Celebrating with fresh mango cake from Red Ribbon Bakery.