explore the city i live in

I am doing a little spring cleaning and creating some new space on this list. This city has so much art and architecture and food and hidden beauty to offer.

Last night we went to the Griffith Observatory. I have never looked through a big telescope. The whole thing was so romantic. The building is beautiful and as you wind around it to reach to top lookout, the view of LA is amazing. I hate to say it, but the pollution and dazzling lights turn the moon red as it rises and actually add to the aura.

Being a full moon I was surprised that they had the scope pointed at Saturn. We waited in line along the roof for about half an hour with lots of other families – kids bundled up, thrilled to be out past their bedtimes. Waxing on about the cosmos. Once we stepped inside the dome we could hear the astronomer talk – You could fit 700 earths inside of Saturn. It has 60 known moons and its rings are made of rock and ice spread out for thousands and thousands of feet, but they are only 10 feet in width. In 2009 the earth will face the rings straight on and they will briefly appear to vanish.

At last it was my turn to walk up the steps and look out across all those miles of cold space. When you look at Saturn you are actually looking 70 minutes back in time, the time it takes the light to travel to us. And it was spectacular! Through the lens it got crystal clear and I could see the rings in such detail. It seemed to wink back at me – I guess the thickness and content of the atmosphere can change moment to moment making it fuzzy and then clear again. What a sight! To think that light traveled all the way from the sun, bounced off a far away planet and hit me right in the eye.

On our way out we checked out the moon from a telescope set up on the lawn. It was also amazing, but I guess the full moon is not the best time to view. Better during a half moon when the light is at a lower angle and highlights the terrain. Still, the creators look enormous and I can’t believe they are size of California. Will definitely have to see it again. The astronomer did not miss the opportunity to tell “the ultimate irony” – turns out the moon really does have about the same density as cheese.

Anyone who is near an observatory and has never done it – go, see! Its really a special experience. There will be good views of Saturn all month.

Another awe inspiring day of art intake. ACE Gallery has two locations, one in LA, one just down the street in Beverly Hills, and both have incredible, museum quality, exhibits right now.

Most impressive was Lauren Bon’s installation on the mythological connection between bees and meat. It is the most sense-stimulating art experience I have ever had. Its beauty is in the subtle transitions of smells and visual tactileness as you move between rooms of corn, cotton, and honey. In one room there is a glass case housing two large live bee colonies hanging from an orange tree branch. The bees come and go through short pipes to the outdoors. The form of the beeswax – its folds and ribs – blew my mind. I had no idea how complex they are. The way its structure is so uniquely formed to its environment and the creative ingenuity of its creators. And all the complex roles and relationships of each bee. Amazing! I could have watched them work for days.

The other gallery has the well matched work of Judy Fox and Martin Schoeller. Feminine creatures of sex as vulnerability paired with photographs of woman with masculine form. Both works are done with amazing execution and detail. This image by Judy Fox is titled Lust.

Not much to look at but once we got there on an errand we realized its a Russian neighborhood. Went into a little grocery and Christian bought me some delicious Russian candy. The best was the one covered with a photo of three bears dressed up in the woods. Can’t judge a sweet by its cover. There are so many cities within this city.

We visited for the first time today. I liked the Aaron Morse work and was amazed by their permanent collection. It’s focus is French nineteenth-century masters, European old master paintings, and work by American artists from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Two Rembrand van Rijn’s Christian had never seen. Vincent van Gogh – I particularly liked the Garden of the Rectory at Neunen – Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Goya, Peter Paul Rubens, and Titian.

It was nice to see some amazing work by artists I had never heard of before, like John Singer Sargent – an American painter. And my new favorite, Honoré Daumier. This photo, Third Class Wagon, is one I found online and is not one that we saw today. It is beautiful, but doesn’t have the quality of light that I fell in love with. Most of the paintings in the Hammer are primarily black, with figures that emerge out of deep darkness. The radiant light on their flesh is so striking that it makes it look as if they are glowing from within. His drawings and prints were also impressive. I read that they have a total of seventy-five hundred of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and lithographs in the Armand Hammer Daumier and Contemporaries Collection.

I can’t wait for the Kara Walker exhibit next month. They also are supposed to have an amazing video library that we didn’t make it into. I want to spend a whole afternoon just exploring that.

We couldn’t help but wonder… does Armand Hammer, the museum’s namesake, = Arm and Hammer Baking Soda? Wikipedia research reveals that Armand Hammer was an American industrialist and art collector. “Despite popular myth, the relation between Hammer’s name and the household product Arm and Hammer baking soda is coincidental. The pun was not lost on Hammer, though: during the 1980s, he attempted to buy Church and Dwight, makers of the Arm and Hammer line of products. He did succeed in buying a sizable minority interest and eventually sat on its board of directors.”

Part of one of the old Craftsman homes in my neighborhood.

Walking around our neighborhood I saw this medallion attached to some addresses. At first I thought maybe these were some of the first houses to be equipped with electricity, but then again they looked like they were probably built later than that. So I looked it up:

The General Electric Company started a campaign in 1956 endorsed by power utilities and electrical manufacturers across the nation to produce public awareness and the desire for the usage of electricity. The theme was “Live Better Electrically” and it was a campaign to push the usage of electricity in the home and Ronald Reagan was the official spokesman. General electric produced a series of educational films about the history of electricity, it’s usage and what the future had in store for electricity in industry, health and general quality of life. One of the most ambitious aspects of the campaign was the certification of newly built homes called “Medallion Homes”. To qualify as a Medallion Home” each house had to be completely electrified which included all electric appliances and electric heating. Each home that meet this qualification received a plaque or Medallion that could be mounted somewhere in the home, usually mounted on a garage wall or out in the front near the front doorway. From 1957 to 1970, some 1,000,000+ homes were certified as Medallion homes and today many of these homes can still be found with their Medallions still hanging proudly on some wall.

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It reminds me of presentations I have seen on the history of electricity – how into the 50’s all electricity was supplied to homes though light sockets. So for the first appliances, like the the first huge clunky electric washing machines, had a long plug that ran from your porch into your house and screwed into the light socket. You couldn’t have light and an appliance on at the same time.

The Huntington Gardens! How amazing, the most incredible gardens I have ever seen. I walked through the desert exhibit with my mouth hanging open drooling all over the spectacular specimens. Its my dream landscape come true. I wish the whole landscape looked that way. I took so many photos and will be able to use them for species identification.

Then drove through the fashion and flower districts downtown. It was about sunset and they were starting to close down, so we have to go back. I want to go to the market too. We stopped at Christians gallery, then off to Chinatown for dinner.

I have really been enjoying slow walks with the dog, taking pictures around my neighborhood. It’s a pretty hilly place. Lots of houses are tucked above one another and carve their path down to the street with stairways like this one. I love seeing how different houses and landscapes have been laid out on the slope.

In the early 1900s Garvanza became known as an artists’ enclave. Many well-known artists who were founding members of the Painter’s Club (est. 1906) such as Carl Oscar Borg, were part of an art group known as the Garvanza Circle, whose members included Hanson Puthuff , Fernand Lungren, Maynard Dixon, Granville Redmond, and Elmer Wachtel. The Painter’s Club ws disbanded in 1909, but soon after the California Art Club was established, with many members carrying over their association with the group. The CAC is still very much alive to date. Further, The Arroyo Guild of Craftsman (1909 – 1915) was headquartered in Garvanza.

There are some amazing gems of houses in this area. Garvanza, along with South Pasadena and Pasadena, is generally considered to be the birthplace of the Arts & Crafts movement in Southern California.

But Garvanza’s reputation as a “bohemian arts colony” was due mostly to a man named William Lees Judson, a British-American painter who, along with his three sons, established the the Colonial Glass Company in 1897 for the production of stained glass. The business became the W.H. Judson Art Glass Company after one of the brothers left, and eventually became the Judson Studios in 1931. The property still stands at its original location at 200 S Ave 66, although a third floor was destroyed by a fire in 1910.

Here is a cool link with great history and photos http://www.laist.com/2007/08/06/the_neighborhoo_2.php. The LAist neighborhood projects is a wonderful resource.

Were there Sat night for Christians show. The gallery 01 is a great space on the ground floor of a new loft complex. There are about five different high-rise buildings around a concrete courtyard that have been converted into loft space with some retail below. Beautiful big open spaces – just the type of warehouse loft space you dream about. The whole place is still empty with just a few shops setting up and a few lofts decked out for sales. They were giving tours and I took it all in. The units we went in where about 800 sf, but a nice layout and nice and open. No finishes and nice balconies with amazing views. So interesting to see how the old building tells its story in this new context. The real estate lady said that all the buildings used to be part of a clothing factory. You can see the burn marks and dye stains on parts of the floor. But I bet it was something else originally. A couple of the buildings are very similar, but the others are very unique and definitely built at a different time. You can see how the relationship between them have evolved over time. There are even sky bridges! And their story goes on. Someone mentioned its about two blocks from tent city. I hear a lot about it but haven’t figure out where it really is yet.

Oh how I LOVE being in old buildings!