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.

Woolly Pockets

I have seen Woolly Pockets in stores and I always wondered how they worked but was never that interested in them until I watched their cool new video (yes, I'm a sucker for cute marketing).  But seriously, I think a vertical garden is a great idea--especially in small spaces, and especially if you live in urban areas and want to bring the outdoors in.

Washi Tape

I picked up a cute roll of Japanese washi tape this weekend at Kinokuniya for $2!  I call this pattern "Bunny Parade."

The Japanese brand MT also sells really cute washi tape.  I love the polka dots and stripes.  A two pack at Kinokuniya was $6.75 but it seems to go for as high as $9 online.

Image from http://www.suggesteduksites.co.uk/products/Christmas-Gifts.html

Washi tape is great for adding some embellishment to notes or plain cards, or adding a bit of quirk to your gifts.

Cute music video + color stories

This music video is so cute.  I love that it shows a sweet fifteen :)  It's got such a laid back So Cal vibe - love it!  I also love that it mainly uses the colors blue, yellow, white, and gold.  A well executed "color story" really makes a difference!

P.S. I do not secretly wish that anyone was my boyfriend.

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.

Natural beauty at the beach

With all my posts about the beauty created by artists, I can't help but get overwhelmed by God's natural beauty all around me. 
I was recently on Catalina Island, and also took a morning trip to my local beach and snapped some inspirational images.  I can see how an artist like Noguchi could get inspired to create his designs given the natural beauty so readily available around us.