Miroco Machiko

I love the vibrant, child-like, abstract work of Miroco Machiko.  I also love the kitties napping in the artist's studio (all images from artist's website).

During the day

I've really been trying to walk and exercise more during the work day.  

I took a really nice 15 minute walk today in the South LA neighborhood, and found this flower and twig along the walk.  Such nice gifts are helpful motivation to get out and about during the week!

Spring, a time for celebrating life!

One thing I've enjoyed about this blog has been keeping record of the seasons through everyday gifts in life--such as food, fun activities, the weather, and plants and flowers.

Spring is a season where many of my loved ones celebrate their birthdays, including little loved ones turning one (!), and it's the traditional season to celebrate mothers, new life, and new marriages.

I was really inspired by this webisode from Heather Taylor of L.A. in Bloom, so I decided to celebrate the birthdays of two dear friends with a gift of flowers (I bought some milk glass vases at a hardware store and bought a few bouquets of greens and flowers at my local TJs--super low maintenance).

I'm also really grateful for opportunities to exercise my creativity in different ways. You will definitely see more floral arrangements from me.

Bells of Ireland

Waiting for peonies

Here are some more old pictures--of peonies.  I think they bloom from April to June so I have to make sure to pick some up in a few months.  Ahh, they are just so beautiful!

Old pictures from the beach . . . time for a beach trip

Camellias!

I stumbled upon a Camellia show at the Descanso Gardens last month.  It was such a pleasure to watch people display their flowers with pride.  They even had a poster on flower show etiquette . . . there was something about "though shall not criticize others' blooms" . . . Haha. 

A collection of images

Bougainvillea

An easy and pretty way to approach floral arrangements . . .

Floral Explosion

I took a mini-trip up to Santa Barbara this past weekend to visit my friend C.  I had never spent very much time up there so it was nice to see a new place.

C took me to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.  They were having a cool Impressionism exhibit with paintings not commonly seen from the Impressionists.  I actually enjoyed looking at Henri Fantin-Latour's floral paintings the most.  He wasn't an Impressionist but was a friend of theirs I believe.  I want this floral arrangement in my house!

Henri Fantin-Latour, Roses in a Glass Vase, 1873
Oil on canvas
(Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, England)

The museum was also showing contemporary work from Ori Gersht:

Ori Gersht, Blow Up: Untitled 4, 2007. Light jet print mounted on aluminum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum

You gotta love a curator with a sense of humor.  This exhibit cracked me up seeing the juxtaposition of the Impressionists and Gersht's take on similar objects used by Latour such as flowers.  But seriously, it was cool to see Gersht's digital images, HD videos, and photography printed on aluminum.  The things you can do with technology.  Some of his other photographs have this dream-like quality about them that I love.  

And here is another Linda Kim floral that I finished last night.  I was looking through my box of art supplies and found an unfinished painting from a few years back.  I decided to use Prismacolors and watercolors to fill it in:

Linda Kim, Untitled, 2011.  Mixed media.