instagram

I was really opposed to joining Instagram when I finally got a smartphone over a year ago for all the reasons that, if I repeat now, just make me as insufferable and obnoxious as any soapboxer on Facebook shouting their opinion (though we're all entitled to our opinions!), but to get down to the crux of it I didn't really see the appeal of (A) yet another microblogging platform, and (B) another extreme way to attention whore/humblebrag/blatantly brag about your goings-on. But now, having been an Instagram user for about five months, my opinions have shifted a bit. Given who you follow, I see it more now as seeing the world through other peoples' eyes, which I guess anybody would say "DUH" to. Unfortunately I chose to regard this app negatively before giving it a chance, which is just a character flaw on my part. Better late than never they say.

Something that saddens me though is when I see a lapse of updates on a blog, only to investigate and realize that said blogger has been so busy with real life that updating has understandably slowed, but the effortlessness and ease of Instagram smoothly bridges that gap one faces with the clunkiness of blogging and the time it usually requires. I get it though, and (drumroll) perhaps I've been guilty of turning to Instagram instead of my blog lately too. But in my case I don't have hundreds or thousands of readers wondering what I must be doing!


And obviously, Instagram is fun. It brings people together (cheesy I know) - one of my best friends who has been off of Facebook for years had been on Instagram instead, so upon joining I feel that extra step of closeness that e-mailing kind of lacks! And another friend I made on the Internet asked me, a day or two after I joined, if I use Instagram, so we became friends there, too! :X


There have been tons of contemporary studies (none of which I can link you to) on the psychological effects of Facebook in that frequenting the site often invokes feelings of inadequacy/jealousy/all those terrible angsty feelings of being un-included, or not doing something fun/amazing like that person on your friends list, and overall makes you really dissatisfied with your own life/accomplishments. That's the worst of what happens I guess. For me I just feel a little wistful that the people I would really like to hear more updates from have wised up and rarely say/post anything on Facebook, or have abandoned it entirely! Inevitably I've been pulling farther away from Facebook, and realized that Instagram is a good stand-in, because when it's just pared down to pictures/hashtags, there's slightly less annoyingness present in users' posts (still on the fence about that statement).

This is really kind of an annoying entry in that I've been discussing a subject that has been diced and angled to pieces...and I apologize for it, but at least, true to the form and function of the application I'm talking about - you, the viewer, can let the words fade to the background and simply look at the pictures instead. 

And because I hate things without context/sources:

1. The Wiltern Theater (beautiful Art Deco building) & glowing hen&chick succulents (I filched one!)

2. An evening spent bike riding with my sister - RIDE OR DIE, and risky self-portraiture habits.

3. Last month was all about mint - plucking armfuls of it, drying it out, and storing it in glass jars for forthcoming weeks of mint tea, just like my grandma loves to do!

4. Documenting things at work, and a shot of Alcatraz from a friend who visited SF and sent me shots of the city coupled with quotes from the Rock, so good.

5. I've been going to lots of music shows too...this was Maps & Atlases at the Echo (!!!) and I never tire of seeing them. Then another shadow selfie that I snapped when I saw the proportion of shadow to light, that I liked.

Even though I've seemingly made my peace with Instagram, here's to hoping there's less of these kinds of posts and more...regular blog type of things on their way.

more drawings

Here are six of the drawings I was scrambling to finish over the past few weeks. I drew nine total, but didn't scan in the last three, which works out well because they would totally give away where I essentially grew up. I guess that statement is silly because I'm assuming I still have full anonymity here, but it's fun to pretend!

What else can I say? Three of these are schools, one is a park, and two are historically significant landmarks. The three I omitted are of yet another two schools, and a very special garden.

I had a lot of fun drawing these! I feel like I honed some skills on this exercise, but could further improve on values, texture, and not outlining too much/trying to include everything. My favorite trick was taking a break from architectural elements to focus on foliage and plant matter, and when I tired of that I would go back to the building with fresh eyes. I had many a night that I would groan in frustration every hour on the hour, but it's the good frustration, the one where you know you got yourself into this situation and it's all up to you to pull through and own up to your project and deliver it as powerfully as you can. Yes, it felt like undergrad studio again, which was 1000x more difficult/complex than this, so...by those standards, this project was no sweat.

by the way

you, I still miss.

analog blogging

Over the last few months I've taken to writing my thoughts down in a real journal again, when pouring out a river of personal thoughts is scandalously (hah!) inappropriate for the blog, or when a listening ear is hard to reach. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to depend on others for support, which is NOT to say I have crappy friends or acquaintances. I get that everyone's got their own thing going on (especially as most of the people I'm referring to are in their twenties), and it isn't that simple anymore to grab a close friend after lecture/studio/work and have a meaningful chat/heart-to-heart/venting session. And even in the face of others, sometimes I feel a little self-conscious about discussing certain issues, in fears of sounding like a whining, self-centered, immature adolescent. It's a little disconcerting when I can provide solace or advice to someone else when I feel like I could use more control over my own problems.

I may be being a little harsh on myself though. And I'm definitely being hypocritical/contradictory in talking about the trickiness of meeting up with others, when I've managed to meet up with J twice in the last several weeks. (I am very much being the unreliable narrator here, bear with me.) In our discussions J and I noticed that one trait we both share is being extremely critical of ourselves, and having high expectations for ourselves in every endeavor or task we're given/set on achieving. I don't mean to sound so lofty in that statement - I'm know a ton of people are like this. My point is, upon going back and forth in our conversation, she and I realized, from taking a few steps back and looking at ourselves, we are doing fine; but out of wanting more, faster - dissatisfaction quickly sets in, and all we can focus on is what can be improved upon.

Angsty thoughts aside, the act of slowing down and putting my rambling down to paper is really soothing. Sometimes when I feel like it I'll doodle a sketch alongside the writing. Some days it's a sketch and nothing else. I try to do one every day, but realistically it's more like every couple of days that I get something substantial down, when thoughts have been brewing and bubbling and are ready to boil over. Some days I know nobody really cares to know about a blooming bud of mine, or another tired criticism of L.A. culture, or that I think of and miss someone way more than I can bear to admit.

I'm alright though. These words reek of self-pity and despair, but I'm not as sad or bitter or negative as I seem. Maybe I'm taking myself a little too seriously, sure, but that pendulum of mine takes mighty swings between being utterly goofy and inane to almost Dostoevskian depths. I'm laughing at me too, now. Sometimes all it takes for me to snap out of this is to make fun of myself/let it all out. :)

ojo de dios

I'm happy to say I've finished a drawing project that consumed my life over the past two weeks, that I COULD have finished well in advance earlier in the year, but as I seem to be a creature who seems to function the best when feeling the direct flame of a deadline at my heels, I fell back into old habits hard and cranked out nine pieces in a little under two weeks. I think I averaged about four hours of sleep every night last week, it felt like undergrad again. But I did it (cue hearty exhale).

Saturday morning I tried to sleep in, but that didn't happen so I gathered up a few bundles of fibers, an "X" of olive branches that I had prepared weeks ago, and an old thrifted instruction book on the Huichol craft 'Ojo de Dios' or God's eye. I resolved to make one for myself to put to rest an old desire from third grade, which was the year in elementary school that we learned about Native Americans. For some reason my class was the only one out of four that didn't get to make those popsicle-stick-and-yarn woven crosses.

I'm glad, thirteen years later, I did it this way though. I'm pretty sure as a third grader the deeper meaning and significance of this project would go right over one's head - but who knows. I'd be lying if I said I felt deeply spiritual while weaving the God's eye, and I certainly did not have an extended prayer that I recited as the weaving formed. But I got the same contemplative peace in assembling the God's eye that I do when I knit - something about the repetitive motions and the gradual building of knots to form a larger whole is extremely soothing. I felt meditative and peaceful winding lengths of colored twine on the wooden frame, even though it was a relatively quick project. I finished the God's eye off with a knotted loop, and hung it above my kitchen door on the threshold of the living room.

It's a little odd to feel this small relief at having completed this craft that I had longed to do as an eight year-old and never really got around to until the pieces started falling into place. I wasn't consumed by the desire all these years either, it faded away and was nearly forgotten, but small steps - finding the Ojo de Dios book at the thrift store, having some dried out olive twigs from my tree at home, and seeing these natural fibers in the glowing colors of the sun at another thrift store slowly but surely pushed me towards the right direction. Seemingly unrelated, yet totally relevant to this fulfillment of old childhood dreams, was finding this large, whole cowrie at El Matador last month. Granted its gorgeous gloss is gone - whitewashed and eroded by the sea to look more like bone, but it is unmistakably a cowrie. And in the way that 8 year-old me would be so happy to know she'd make a God's eye down the line, 9 year-old me is thrilled that she found her own cowrie on the beach instead of buying one from the store. So here's to attaining lost childhood goals, all along the way to actualizing current, adult ones.

construction observations

Framing hammer standing in as paperweight on a blustery day. 

Chalk dust for marking/labeling. 

Ready to go! Self explanatory. 

All three of the birds, plus a boom concrete pump. 

Measuring tape atop a finished concrete floor. All of that finishing is still done by hand, no machine that can do this with that kind of finesse.

A welded rebar "mystery burro" of some sort...I want it.

Lunches! I love imagining what kind of glorious/enormous meals the workers likely pack for themselves every day. 

Bonus snapshot! Me in all my PPE (personal protective equipment).

el matador state beach

Yesterday I got the day off from work, so I went to the beach with A! We decided on El Matador State Beach in Malibu, farther out past Zuma, but the amount of exploring afforded by the extra miles made it so worth it. We went down the steps from cliff to shore and headed East (South? I never know, when I'm by the ocean...), and after scoping everything out for an hour, got hungry and set up our picnic lunch atop a big rock right along the water's edge. After lots of egg salad, pickles, chips and the like, we went straight back to exploring...

There was so much to see. A pointed to a runoff from the cliffs that had carried down all these rocks that, over years had gotten smooth and worn down by the pounding of the waves and against each other. I noticed many of the beach pebbles resembled the jasper and chalcedonies that I picked up out of the desert several weeks ago and was extremely excited to see them in a smoother, semi-polished form.

 

As well as interesting mineral specimens, A had his eye out for tiny, colorful, perfect seashells. Check out that gorgeous plum-colored and ridged cowrie! Oh, after some quick research I've learned it is not a true cowrie, but a trivia - Trivia californiana. I've never seen such a beautiful shell like that found on a California beach. Seems like I've been frequenting the wrong ones all my life! In addition to the obvious awesomeness of the mineral and molluscan findings, there was plenty of marine life to see - tide pools full of sea anemones, crabs, limpets, periwinkle snails, and farther out - mussels, sea stars, dolphins! We saw some sea lions while eating/walking around too, sadly looking a bit forlorn as if they were missing their mothers...

 
El Matador is known for its sea caves in addition to its large rock outcroppings, which we explored after lunch. There we stumbled upon ghostlier-colored sea anemones, timed our movements around the caves against the crashing waves, left our flip flops on a rock to triumphantly return to later, all while stooping and scooping and scrutinizing the lovely shells and rocks all over the beach. I did a half-assed job of documenting it all because right off the bat I just wanted to play and enjoy everything, and that won out over preserving the memories...!

 

Today I awoke and felt sore from yesterday's excursions, a tiny bit sandy and the teeniest bit salty. After several errands and lunch I sorted out my beach treasures, slightly less impressive now that they were dry and out of the ocean, but still breathtakingly gorgeous. I added some to a few of my potted plants, sort of like jewelry or visual candy for them, haha. The rest of the pebbles are now atop my dresser in a medium-sized glass apothecary jar - smooth, shiny, vibrant and now a hearty reminder that there's always more out there, possibly better variations of things that you thought you knew - which is a thrilling realization.

golden haze

I recently got several packs of the Impossible Project's PX 680 and PZ 680 film and tried them out over the weekend. Unfortunately, I treated them like the defunct-since-2008, discontinued Polaroid 600 film and when I saw the dark blue emulsion face, was convinced I had gotten a pack of duds. Crushed as I was, I decided to finish off the rest of the box, only to research later and realize that it takes 30-40 minutes and preferably complete darkness to develop one of these Impossible Project images! Argh! So these turned out sickly and hazy, but I kind of like them. My unintentional self-portrait to the bottom right went like this: "Eh, fuckit, this isn't gonna turn out anyway (click)." I secretly enjoyed how carefree I was with these polaroids when I was under the impression that none of them would turn out - with the steadily rising prices of film and film development over years past, it seems like there's an inherently more careful approach to how one approaches a roll or pack of film. But that's pretty much how it should be. It's so easy to take 10+ images of the same thing digitally and choose the best one later. There's nothing wrong with that though, it's the beauty of the medium. 

field trip - hunting for rocks!

Last weekend I serendipitously joined a Lapidary Society when I stumbled upon their annual rocks & minerals/gem show and, after speaking with several senior members, signed up and was excited to learn there would be a collecting field trip the next weekend out to the Lavic area in the Mojave Desert!

I got up at 4:30 AM on Saturday morning so that I could leave by 5 and get to the first meeting point 30 minutes outside of Barstow at 8:30. I met some modern-day prospectors on the National Trails Highway, who were heading out to spend the day mining/panning for gold and platinum. By 9 AM I had met new and longstanding members from the Pasadena, Whittier, and Glendora clubs, and we started a caravan west out to the first collecting site. This first site had an endless bounty of jasper as far as the eye could see, and there were SO many beautiful specimens it was hard not to pick up everything in sight. I took pictures of what I saw but didn't take, but collecting pretty much took precedence over documentation...! From the jasper/agate site we moved on to look for thulite (a green and pink marble), and an impromptu side trip to hunt for chalcedony roses right before heading back on I-40.

Of course a trip out to the desert ensures fine cactus encounters. Here I spotted what I think is Opuntia basilaris var. basilaris at the thulite site, and Echinocactus polycephalus when we were searching for chalcedony roses. I saw some teddy bear/jumping cholla too and made sure to keep some distance from them, but not before checking out their furry, toothpick-like spines.

It was pretty incredible to be in the company of extremely passionate and adventurous people all in the pursuit of awesome rocks and being outdoors in the desert. The average age of the people there was 60, and pros that they were had their collecting jackets/vests, hats, rock hammers/scoops, and walking/hiking sticks to facilitate efficient collecting. Many of them would call a newer member over to show a chalcedony growth atop some rhyolite, or a particularly gorgeous example of thulite with deep pink rivers swirling on a lush green sea, point out a piece of brecciated jasper, or, towards the end of the trip excitedly examine a fossilized clamshell that a new member had sharply eyed and picked up! I feel amazingly charged and alive when I interact with people who have retained a sense of wonder for their surroundings, and who seem impervious to weird modern perils and jaded points of view.

 

Sunday morning I could not sleep in, so after a bit of toast I filled up a bucket with warm water and went to work lightly cleaning the jasper, agate, and thulite I lugged home. I also found some little chalcedonies and druzys that I laid out on a paper towel layer on the kitchen table, but damn was I way more interested in handling and examining every piece than photographing it all! My sister stepped out and watched me for a bit before asking "What are you going to do with all of these?" and I just looked at her, my hands full of gleaming wet rocks and I exclaimed "I don't know!" I realize I will need to have a good-sized house, excellent cleaning/purging habits, a ton of willpower, and a whole lot of nothing to start with (haha), in order to keep my collecting tendencies in check. I'm looking forward to more field trips, because this hands-down beats picking around an excavated construction site all the way, in every way.

your days in one

Joining skein 5 to skein 6! This new skein is super irregular - I've been feeling lumpy, thicker parts of wool as well as skinny, smooth areas...which makes me pretty excited to feel/see these irregularities in the finished knit!

A badass prickly pear (Opuntia) cactus tree amongst some oaks one morning. Not sure of the exact species. I love seeing how this specimen managed to grow up and out to compete for light on the otherwise very shady forest floor. Nature you are, always have been, and always will be utterly amazing.

 

I started one of those "write-down-good-things-that-happen then tip-it-all-out and read-at-the-end-of-the-year" jars at the beginning of the year. I've been treating it as a method of staying positive (duh), and by writing down the good happenings on scraps of used paper I've sort of been recycling, too.

Snagged this Archival roll-top rucksack that was on mega-sale for no apparent reason (??!) last month, and it has replaced my previous work bag, though I don't hesitate to use it for weekend romps outdoors/running errands/everything. I've been a fan of the rucksack-style pack for ages, but have always frowned upon the double-strap style (really inconvenient/time-consuming) and have pretty much been waiting around for years to find one with a single-strap closure in the perfect materials & color (and price!). Really lucked out with this one...

Sand for succulents/bottling for memories.

My string of pearls plant (Senecio rowleyanus) produced one flower this winter that smelled curiously and deliciously like that of a clover blossom - strong, too! It has since gone to seed, but its heady scent was a wonderful thing to come home to and be greeted by after a long day.

I inevitably end up with a handful of images every month that I meant to mention, but lost along the way, so this is my way of rounding them up and keeping track of things! Not really necessary, but it's fun.

excuse me for a second: Bloglovin (<-- knee-jerk reaction to the announcement of the end of Google Reader).