Love your city

I've driven past this mural a few times . . . it always puts a smile on my face.  I took a picture of it today and noticed there was tagging on the bottom right corner.  I also noticed that it was painted by lovebrand.com which after researching online, found out that it's a men's bathing suit company.  Maybe I didn't read it correctly.  I need to go back and check again.

I don't blame the tagger though--it's hard to love your city if your city's not loving you back.

Public Art Everywhere

One aspect of Los Angeles that I love is that it is such a rich canvas for public art.  I recently discovered Folk Art Everywhere, a movement aimed at displaying local art throughout the city at spaces meant to cultivate community.  I recently visited one of Folk Art Everywhere's spaces at Mercado La Paloma, a great public space with eateries and other small businesses (I highly recommend eating at Chichen Itzen).

Close-up of the mural outside of Mercado La Paloma by Elizabeth Eve.  You can see it from the 110 North.

The Cochinita Pibil at Chichen Itzen

LA Commons is also a great non profit aimed at telling the stories of diverse communities through the work of local youth partnering with professional artists.  Their mission is to tell the stories of immigrant communities all throughout LA such as Koreatown, Thai Town, Chinatown, and others through public murals, installations, and other cool projects.

And finally, this is an installation I stumbled on upon a recent trip to Santa Monica:

'Cradle' by Ball Nogues.  Image from www.designboom.com

It's a public installation on the side of a parking lot.  You can read more about it here: 'Cradle'.  It's really cool in person.  I'll have to get a closer look at it the next time I'm in Santa Monica.  I believe it won an award.