highlights of 2010

January was full of adventures - I went to the 2010 Rose Parade for the first time in my life, after years of watching it January 1st on TV and enjoyed watching all the floats in real time with my mom and sister. Went to San Jose to visit Tommy and his family and visited the Winchester Mystery Mansion and the San Jose Flea Market! Since I had the semester off I started tackling the gigantic mess that is my room and simultaneously went flea market/thrift store hopping with my mom every chance I got. Also - lots of art, mostly linoleum block print making that month.

February I started working as an intern at an architecture firm, finally getting some structure in my daily routine. Worked on a competition and outside of that frequented art museums with Dan, hung out with Tommy, helped my mom with art classes, took care of the poopies and cooked a lot!

In March after the usual with work, flea markets, etc. I went to San Jose again! We visited San Francisco, explored Golden Gate Park, the Aquarium, and ate lots of good food. This visit marked my Pizza My Heart obsession as well as my newfound love for artichokes!

In April I went to Chicago, en route from Kansas City and St. Louis by Amtrak. My first time in the Midwest! Saw lots of great architecture and saw Frank Gehry give a talk which made me like him! Back in L.A., got laid off of my interning duties, and soon after got a job at Trader Joe's. Started going on lots of hikes with Tommy and got a bike to start riding around.

As the weather continued to get better in May, hikes were more frequent as well as trips to the beach. Tommy graduated, and for a while we had more time to spend together before he headed down to San Diego to start his job. My friend Joe started gaining more exposure doing his music thing and I accompanied him at times to his gigs.

In June I went to lots of museums and this is the time I painted the most. I think I began to understand colors in a more profound sense and wanted to express that knowledge. Work, paint, boyfriend, eat, sleep.

July equaled lots of outdoor time, good food and the beach. And prime flea market time as Tommy my mom and I went looking for furniture for his new place, oftentimes quite successfully! Started my t-shirt quilt which is pretty much done now except for some major hemming.

August! Went to Mammoth and spent time with my pop fishing and enjoying nature. Went to Spokane shortly after with Tommy and had a great trip before the inevitable mental trudge back to school. For my birthday Tommy got me a beautiful typewriter, which I used to type him letters in San Diego.

September. I wasn't in love with school, and having a mini crisis in realizing most all of my friends had graduated and left. Readjusting was slow... I just threw myself into my work at school, work at Joe's, and got another work study job on campus.

October was a little more enjoyable - the calm before the storm before schoolwork began to explode. I enjoyed having to read for class though, had a bit of roommate trouble but that's over, and started really getting into my metal sculpture class. Visits to Tommy in between classes and work!

November, Thanksgiving, work, midterms. A crazy month. I started going home a lot, despite the high cost of rent...

December was a mixed bag. I was so burnt out from school that I didn't get into the Christmas spirit at all, until a day or two before when I prepared the secret santa gift I had to bring for a coworker... I only really got gifts for my family and boyfriend, which is all that really matters I think. I am just happy that I have one semester of school left, which also means I need to find a real job...

2010 was a great year. Lots of creative stimulation in the first part, the second part was different but still a good learning experience and I think I learned a lot about myself. Lots I can improve upon for the future, anyway.

rain! & hail!

It's raining again! Strangely it's nice, even after the weeklong gloom and damp we endured before Christmas this year. It's still too dark to watch the rain but it's loud enough to listen to... I can't fall back asleep! Maybe I can get some things done now. I leave you with some shots of the thunderstorm that brought hail exactly a week ago! Hail is delicious :).

merry christmas!

I felt more like the Grinch this holiday season to be honest but I was able to pull through! It's been an eventful Grinchmas - pannetone French toast for breakfast, driving boyfriend to the airport with many detours on the way, awkward phone call from dad, Christmas fights on the phone (not me), picking Tommy up soon from the metro station - cancelled/delayed/mismanaged flights, lame, and cleaning/cooking all throughout. Working tomorrow morning at 4, yippee!

True Grit (2010)

I haven't seen the 1969 True Grit starring John Wayne, so there will be no comparisons of the original with the Coens'. All I read after watching this film is that the 2010 True Grit is closer in tone to the book it was based upon (written by Charles Portis in 1968). The film definitely played out like a Western - gritty, straightforward with no frills, and slightly grim in tone, and it was all masterfully worked in true Coens brothers film fashion. With the cinematography by Roger Deakins perfectly setting the look, as well as the perfect minimal score by Carter Burwell, I was immediately sucked in. The character Mattie Ross (played by Hattie Steinfeld), a precocious, hard-headed 14 year-old determined to bring her father's murderer to justice, calls on the help of U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down the man Tom Chaney (played by Josh Brolin). Matt Damon is Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who has been on Chaney's trail for months. The remarkable thing about the young actress portraying Mattie is that any given time she could have been irritating and obnoxious but the part was played so well there was no time for that. Jeff Bridges is awesome as Rooster Cogburn, irascible, drunk though definitely one who possesses 'true grit' and Matt Damon nearly disappeared in his role as LaBoeuf. As a Coen brothers film it felt more like a straight practice in genre, with much subtler humor and less of the slapstick feel I think is evident in much of their films (not that that's bad!) but completely successful as a Western.

Wings of Desire (1987)

'Wings of Desire' by Wim Wenders, set in Berlin towards the end of the Cold War, follows Damiel, an angel (played by Bruno Ganz) as he and fellow angel Cassiel (Otto Sander) observe humankind. Unseen by all except for children, the angels can hear peoples' thoughts, fears and desires but otherwise have no physical power in their one-sided interactions with humans. Damiel tires of his endless, immortal existence and upon becoming human marvels at his new experiences - he bleeds, sees colors, drinks coffee and warms his hands by rubbing them back and forth. As an angel he had fallen in love with a trapeze artist, Marion, and in his newfound experience as a mortal, seeks to find her. The film is also a series of ruminations on Berlin's past, its current state and what is in store for it in the future, which felt like what Andrezj Wajda did with Poland for Ashes and Diamonds . Said thoughts are profound and overall the film is dreamy and beautiful, and no surprise, for the director of photography was Henri Alekan (who was responsible for the groundbreaking camera work in Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête). Peter Falk (The Princess Bride!) stars as himself, in a nice twist of a role which grounds the film in its fantasy land. The first 2/3 of the film feels mostly expository, as we move around the city and watch characters, whereas in the last part we see how Damiel deals with being human. An interesting film.

my day yesterday

I've been helping my mom watercolor-ify and outline a ton of kid's artwork for a big event at the elementary school. It had rained the night before, it's raining now and it's supposed to rain all the way to next Wednesday. Awesome/awful, depending on how rain makes you feel. I've drunk so much tea these days it's my main source of hydration (almost). I haven't started anything for Christmas and I am okay with that. I have a long day of work ahead of me today. Time to bring out my rain boots!

recent thrifting finds...!

These were from two weeks ago and in my stress leading up to the beginning of this week neglected to show. I got the ceramic Scottie dog at the PCC flea market. It's marked at $14, but when I picked it up the hilarious vendor said "Oh! You just picked that up so now it's $12." I smiled and put it down then picked it back up after saying something to my mom, and he said "Every time you pick it up the price goes down!" So for $10 it was mine, I couldn't resist his charms. Later on I fretted a little about impulsively buying it (even though as of late I've been fascinated with 1960s/70s kitschy American ceramics) but after hearing my aunt, my mom and sister note how the scottie resembles our girl dog BB when she was a pup made me not regret the decision anymore.

I found a copy of Meditations at a Goodwill for only $3! When I suffered a glare from the librarian at the local library at home for renewing Meditations 3 times (we're only allowed 2 renewals, which I forgot) I was saddened at realizing I could no longer read as quickly as I did when I was younger. But Greek philosophy versus Greek myths? Obviously a discrepancy there...

second to last, done

It feels good to be done with school. Though this semester went out with a whimper, sweet sweet winter break is here. (That is a giant ball of blue tape; we had to use SO much to keep our presentations up on the walls...)

Black Swan (2010)

Darren Aronofsky's psychological thriller Black Swan portrays Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, a twenty-something year old ballet dancer who catches her first big break when the director of her dance company, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), selects her for the lead of his opening production for the season, Swan Lake. Nina perfectly embodies the role of the White Swan - pure, innocent, graceful, but desperately lacks the passionate, beguiling and seductive nature of the Black Swan. Nina is awarded the part when Leroy makes a sexual advance towards her, which she aggressively rebuffs. Therefore he realizes she has a darker, more tenacious side to her, one she must let loose and lose herself in. This struggle to unleash this darker side conflicts with Nina's sense of self, as she is by nature a perfectionist and unwilling to let herself make mistakes or loosen up. She sees a threat in a new member of her dance company, Lily (Mila Kunis) who is everything Nina isn't - she smokes, takes drugs, has sex & a life outside of ballet, is gregarious and even reckless - all qualities which, as an imperfect dancer instead mark her as a highly passionate and expressive one, for she obviously manifests all the qualities of the Black Swan. Nina's obsession to perfect herself for the two Swan roles heightens her stress levels, increases her paranoia and leads her on a downward spiral in which she loses her grip on reality.

Vague, slightly spoiler-ish summary haphazardly written, now on to actual thoughts. Natalie Portman had me impressed, as I hadn't really liked her in anything recent, really since Leon: The Professional (edit: and Closer). Strong performances also by Mila Kunis, who made a perfect foil to Portman's character, Vincent Cassel as the manipulative ballet director, Barbara Hershey as Nina's overbearing, obsessive mother, and Winona Ryder in the role of the fallen prima ballerina. The opening shots of Nina noticing Lily in the subway (similarly coiffed and dressed), then repeatedly glancing at her, sizing her up for competition, immediately made me think of doppelgangers and the danger of a relationship based on a fascination with/jealousy of someone who is a polar opposite yet strangely familiar. This reminded me of Ingmar Bergman's Persona and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, with the intermingling of identities, and the danger of the blurred line between life and art. I can go on and on about this; thank goodness the film is pretty thought-provoking. But Black Swan is unfortunately cheapened by stupid, clichéd quick cuts, soundtrack 'stings' and additional shitty horror movie shticks that drastically lower the quality of the storytelling. In fact at these parts I felt insulted as the viewer for having these tropes replayed over and over again. Subtlety could have made Black Swan brilliant, but alas it's just a good film. Not amazing as a whole, but worth watching for the camera work, characters, lush ballet scenes and some other random bits and bobs.

I wish it would snow...

I would just stare at it in wonder for a few minutes and then...sleep.

lunching at the love cube

I don't know if it was architecture students or art students who assembled this funny little playground/gathering spot of a structure a month or so ago but it has been probably the most successful (and low budget) installation our school has seen. Deemed the 'love cube' - flyers around the building have welcomed people to sit there, make out, eat, talk, play, swing, and be creative - and the students have listened! I made a big point this year to not buy food on campus, but this is the third time all semester I buckled down and got Panda for lunch (guilty pleasure food...) which I gobbled up at the cube, and to work off my food coma I swinged on the swing and enjoyed the sunshine. I feel like I haven't felt the sun for days, which is clearly hyperbole, but it was nice to have half an hour to myself, reflecting on life and the semester.

foggy morning

L.A. fog... I woke up at 6 this morning to get ready for a packed morning. Our final presentations for studio were finally finished printing yesterday (when they would ideally have been completed by Wednesday) and after work last night I made a mad dash to studio to trim my boards & mount them on foam core, then hang them up in the designated space downtown... Took a couple hours with us waiting for another studio mate to finish his stuff, then looking for parking, then carrying 10+ boards up to the 50th floor of the National Bank Tower. Then I went with my sister back home-home where we helped my mom with a ton of art stuff and now I'm trying to get at least half of my portfolio done tonight so I can work and hang out with my boyfriend this weekend. More on my day later, as I try to complete my portfolio in 5 page installments!