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LA Trip – Day 2

February 21st, 2011 · 2 Comments

Galleries were closed so I hit up more design spots around town.

The Reformation = cool, wearable clothes made from recycled textiles. It was closed when we walked by on Saturday so I returned to do some shopping. Turns out they have a store in New York too!

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Food trucks on Abbott Kinney Road in Venice.

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A “Cali” dog (beef hot dog, basil mayo, avocado, crunchy onions, tomatos and arugula). Tasted as good as it sounds.

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A + R is a super-cool design shop with a mix of modern design staples like this and more unusual items like this and this.

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ModKat x 2.

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Tortoise General Store is my new favorite design store. Yes, I know, I’m totally obsessed with Japanese design! For those other Japanophiles out there I’m telling you this place is a little slice of heaven, AND it just so happens they’re considering opening a shop in Brooklyn… if only! We bought a few, darling items and somehow they all fit in a teeny, tiny paper bag.

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Los Angeles

February 20th, 2011 · 3 Comments

Ha. No, we’re not moving to LA. We love Brooklyn way too much. This post is about uncovering some of the crazy-cool art and design in Los Angeles. There’s a reason New York and LA are known as Meccas of art and design – it’s not all hype!

My husband and I both have family in Los Angeles so we make our way out to the left coast from time to time, and when we do we try to explore as much as possible.

This weekend we’re here visiting and doing the design thing. Being here has made me realize how much fun it would be to share my discoveries with others and so I’ve decided to put together an informal guide to art and design in the LA area. In the meantime here are some tidbits from our trip.

Day 1 of 2.

Our very cute hotel’s amusing attempt at weather-proofing.

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Right outside our hotel – must be a sign.

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DF Feet. Too bad they are men’s only.

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The Heath Store has become a must when we’re in town. They always have different stuff in the store and it’s always fun to check out their discounted seconds. I didn’t get a photo, but right now they have table linens in the most amazing colors by the legendary Belgian company Libeco.

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We think these are giant cookie jars.

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P B & C = Peanut butter Banana & Chocolate plus seven different ways of brewing coffee at LAMILL in Silver Lake.

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Adorable planters by Jen Kuroki at Yolk.

Note: I made a big mistake and planned to gallery hop today when it turns out that most are closed on Sundays. I’m trying not to kick myself too much and just view this as more of a “design” trip.

Stay tuned for tidbits from Day 2.

Living The California Dream

December 16th, 2010 · 6 Comments

Liz Kuball’s ongoing series “California Vernacular” captures Southern California’s beauty and peculiarities which (depending on your geography) feel either acutely alien or familiar. For me it’s a bit of both; I grew up on the East Coast but spent a lot of time in SoCal visiting family. The “California” Kuball captures isn’t Hollywood, Beverly Hills or another cliched locale but the quirky, laid-back and unabashedly superficial California which so many (like Kuball) fall in love with.

When you move out to California from back east, you come for a reason: You’re leaving behind a bad relationship, or escaping your hometown, or thinking you’ll be a star. And what you find when you get here is that things aren’t what you thought they’d be. There’s some of what you expected—sunshine and palm trees and long, wide beaches. But there’s more: houses with cacti and succulents in place of the green lawns you grew up with; women in bikinis climbing ladders…

And you’d think that, after all this, you’d become disillusioned and go back home, and some do, of course, but many more of us stay and instead of growing bitter, we hang on—hang on to a world that, to us, is even more fantastic than the one we thought we’d find, because it’s real in its absurdity and because we have stories to tell.

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Artist Crush: Sarah Williamson

October 28th, 2010 · 2 Comments

Sarah Williamson is a Los Angeles-based artist who has shown at Black Maria Gallery. Her watercolors are both poignant and humble and at times quite humorous. My favorite is the man with his dog but then again I have a soft spot for dachshunds.

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New Work and Interview – Jeanna Sohn

October 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment

LA artist, Jeanna Sohn was interviewed by Bruno Colajanni on frizzifrizzzi, an Italian blog. I don’t speak Italian so please note this is totally bastardized version via Google Translator. Like her new work, it was simply too good not to share!

…Do your dreams to inspire you(r work)?
They are more inspired by the words, texts, poetry, music and stories from more than dreams. When I was younger I had a lot of strange dreams… but now I think they are so boring that I don’t even remember them!

…What is your creative process?
…I do not paint all the time, as do many artists. I like to do something else, such as photography, shooting and editing video, writing on my blog, and then I suddenly feel the need to return to painting. I like to focus my attention on one thing at a time when I get tired and I’m ready to dedicate myself to a new project. My creative process often changes. Sometimes I start with a pen and draw a design on a panel, but other times I have nothing planned. I simply start with a small point and let my hand g0 free…

When did you decide to move from Pohang, Korea, to Los Angeles?
I first moved to San Francisco 10 years ago. I lived there for a year and then I came here to Los Angeles (to attend) CalArts (Californian Institute of the Arts).

What do you miss (about) your country? What do you think has influenced the way you paint…?
I miss my parents and my childhood friends. I grew up in a beautiful and peaceful village full of cherry trees and dragonflies. I loved playing in the woods and going hunting for butterflies and dragonflies. I was very in touch with nature so I think this is the key element of my artistic sensibility.

Could you tell us about your experience working in (Los Angeles)?
It’s very difficult being an artist right now, wherever you are, except for the big stars. There is a community of artists here in L.A. but frankly I do not feel connected to this kind of reality. I’m rather on my own, I prefer to develop my own ideas and this makes me very happy.

Artist Crush: Melissa Manfull

October 12th, 2010 · 4 Comments

These drawings/watercolors by LA-based Melissa Manfull are an unusual and mind-bending amalgam of precise, detailed architecture and hallucinogenic abstraction. The expansive pools of paint are one of the more interesting uses of watercolor I’ve seen. Manfull has a solo show, Pattern Constraints, at Taylor DeCordoba through October 23rd.

“Seeking inspiration from metaphysics and mysticism, Melissa Manfull creates hyper-detailed structures that straddle the worlds of reality and imagination… Due to the obsessive nature of her process, Manfull has often viewed the meditative act of drawing as a way to approach her fear of vast, open ended space (the unknown)…

Her musings on space are echoed by architecture theorist, Christian Norberg-Schulz, who discussed how buildings are an intermediary between sky and earth. This idea spoke to the artist’s interest in architecture as a means to fill a void (empty space)…” – Taylor DeCordoba

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