Week Eleven!

This week's project is very much a direct follow up to Week Four's project.  I don't get to do too much rendering these days, so to stay in practice, I've been doing the Your Turn challenges in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.

My mother got me a subscription to the magazine for Christmas and I've been enjoying it a lot.  It's much more technical and focused than my other favorites (Metalsmith and American Craft) and it provides more in depth information on topics all at once.  For example, a recent issue did an article and a project on Chinese Writing Stones, and the last issue had a section on Plume Agate.

Anyway, one of the projects they one this week had a challenge based on it.  Here's one of the designs I worked up to riff on it.

Levitated Mass

So we had another art related adventure last weekend (hence the delay in getting my project of the week posted)!  Now, in case I haven't mentioned, I live right down the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).  And I try my very best (with variable success) to keep up to date on what's going on in the area.

Fortunately, I stumbled on this amazing event a few days before it went down, and in case I hadn't my wonderful boyfriend Steve was on top of it as well, suggesting that we go to it before I'd even mentioned it to him!

I'd been hearing about this for a while, actually.  I'd get an email from the museum, or some snippet from the news.  And what I heard was: There's this big art installation going up at LACMA soon, called Levitated Mass.  They weren't kidding when they said it was big.

We ran into a cluster of food truck supporting the event (I had some delicious waffles) and some individuals from the museum who were handing out bookmarks (I've included both sides in this blog, since one has a sweet sketch and the other has some additional details on the piece.) 

Around three on Saturday morning, we caught up with the convoy coming down Wilshire Blvd.  (I'd already devoured a waffle from one of the food trucks on the walk down to see it.)  We'd heard it would be hitting the museum at 3:30 am from the Twitter feed, and gone out walking to meet it, but it had slowed down while we were on foot, and we met it out at Lucerne Blvd.

In case you wondered about the scale of this thing, here I am in front of it.  (Also, in case you're one of those "pictures, or it didn't happen!" people.)  All photos were taken by Steve as well.

A closer view of the hauling rig.  Impressive, huh?

Probably the best view of the boulder itself.  Certainly the best lit.  Steve scored this shot after the rock had run into a little trouble and stopped.  Look at the upper left of the photo.

See that street light there?  Now look to the right of the photo:  That's the rock.  On a level with the street light.  And on the very left?  That's the crane they pulled up the street light with.

I kid you not.  This was a serious undertaking, and we stood and watched it for half an hour or so while they wiggled and lifted the streetlight enough to squeeze the rock underneath.

We weren't the only ones out in the wee hours of the morning watching this go down either.  Quite a crowd for that time of night, and we all cheered when they got the rock past this streetlight!

Having made the journey and seen the rock en route, we dragged ourselves home, passing the rock on the way.  Apparently it had stopped while a tow truck came out and moved some cars out of it's lumbering way.  (I'm pretty sure that rock could have taken them though.)

The rock made it the rest of the way to LACMA, and we drove past it Sunday sitting behind the museum.  They've put the security fence up now, and the next time we see it, it'll be enshrined in the actually installation:  Levitated Mass.

Week Ten!

A day or two late on this posting, but I have an excellent reason for that, which I'll tell you all about in another post!  (More excitement last weekend!

So here is the last (for now?) two sets of my Victorian inspired earrings.  They, along with the blue pair (the Beatrice earrings), will be traveling to ArtUnleashed.

Mabel earrings

Vivian earrings

I've taken the naming from some popular women's names of the era that I thought fitted the styles and colors of each pair!

Miracle Mile Art Walk

You may have noticed that last week's project went up early.  There was an excellent reason for that:  I had company, in the form of my mother and little sister, in town for the weekend.

We had a lot of fun, but the highlight of the weekend (aside from the excellent company) was probably the Miracle Mile Art Walk.  I was lucky enough to stumble onto the website for the Art Walk about a week before it happened, so I was tremendously excited to be able to get out and visit a number of galleries.  There were over fifty galleries participating, and although we made a valiant effort (made even more impressive by my nine year old sisters epic endurance), we didn't manage to hit anywhere near all of them.  We did manage to hit quite a few though!

First, we visited Edward Cella Art + Architecture, which was an excellent first stop.  Mom's favorite piece was Lynn Aldrich's piece Hydra Hydrant.  It was pretty fascinating, especially since it was constructed from, amongst other things, gutter spouts.  My favorite pieces were Tim Hawkin's Bog series.  I was really impressed with his concept and the construction of his pieces, and thought they were very clever.  Aimee (my little sister) was pretty obsessed with the front desk, which was definitely worth a little obsessing over- it was constructed from layer upon layer of cardboard, creating an undulating surface that brought to mind topographical maps and geological strata.

We then stopped in at the Craft And Folk Art Museum.  I adore this place, because it regularly gets me out of the house to attend Etsy Craft Nights there.  (First Thursday of every month, highly recommended.  This month I went out even though I was dying of the plague and redecorated a pair of shoes so awesomely that I won a brand new pair from bcfootwear.)  I like it so much that I'm a member.  They have some interesting exhibits going on right now.  I particularly liked Máximo González: Playful.  It was a lot of fun to view, and I liked his use of materials.  He worked a lot with devalued currency, and my favorite piece (the name of which has escaped me) was one that used the currency in a less pictorial manner to create this graphic structure that was built off the wall.  

We watched Kent Twitchell paint on the Berlin Wall Monument as well.  I'd actually passed by the wall a number of times before, but seeing the artist work on it was pretty awesome.

Next we cut up to La Brea Avenue to check out the Loft At Liz's, which I think was my favorite gallery of the night.  It's above the owner's antique hardware store (which is equally amazing- I just wanted to spend all my money on all the glorious fixtures) in this gorgeous loft space.  It's got hardwood floors and interesting nooks and crannies, and the most amazing staircases.  (My little sister was terrified of them, because the steps are a little higher and more narrow than modern stairs.  They reminded me of my grandmother's cellar steps and all the wonderful adventures I had rummaging around in her junk down there.)  The artwork was excellent- they've got an exhibition called Craft Meets Art & Design up, and craft is really where my heart is.  Plus, they had this excellent piece, a ceramic bedpan with the statement "The Artist Is A Fountain" on it, which gave me a chance to give my Marcel Duchamp lecture.  (If my college writing class gave me anything, it's the ability to talk about Marcel Duchamp and my love/hate relationship with him.  Also, to explain the concept of a Readymade.)  I'm not sure I could pick a piece from the gallery that I liked best, because I wanted to take them all home with me, but I did have a minor freak out over Pamela Weir-Quiton's work.  I mean, just click that and look at the photos.  Those are file cabinets.  And also elephants with moveable ears.  They are impossible for me to look at and not grin like I've lost my mind.  Plus there was a little catch-all, which was a sheep.

We were lucky we went out the back door of the gallery, instead of out the way we came (through the hardware store) or a) I'd be significantly more broke, and b) we would have missed out on seeing the Alphonse Mucha Mural by MEAR ONE.  It was on the art walk map, but there was a note that said it was in an alley, and I can't just go wandering up and down alley's looking for awesome murals.   (We were also lucky that it was still light out when we left the gallery!)

Our next stop was Lab Art Gallery, which was a completely different experience from all the other galleries we visited.  It was much more modern, with a pop art and graffiti sensibility that pushed some boundaries.  (If you've got small children with you, be warned, plenty of the art has swear words.  A chance, perhaps, to explain the difference between using them in daily conversation and art?)  There are no photos of my favorite piece on the website, but it's an enormous totem pole-esqe sculpture with a very tongue in check take on Scrabble tiles.  (You'll know it if you visit the gallery!)  My little sister loved the cow that was painted like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, and a giant glossy tube of pink lipstick that appeared as if it had been ground into its pedestal, entitled "All The Good Ones Are Gay."  Mom liked a piece I suspect was by the same artist, an enormous Blow-Pop that had melted across the floor, as well as an large mixed media piece depicting an American flag made out of credit and membership cards all in the same name.

We followed that up with the Merry Karnowsky Gallery which had a number of works by Tara McPherson, Deedee Cheriel, and Lindsey Way on view.  Tara McPherson's work came out the favorite in our group, with Mom declaring McPherson's piece Fall her favorite, while I picked Panther Wayob, for it's glossy darkness.  I found Lindsey Way's Hush series to be intriguing as well, with tiny installations depicting the journey through the common cold.

Our last stop for the evening before we called it a night and went off to eat was Couturier Gallery, which had up an exhibition of DeLoss McGraw's work called Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  While the work brought up some interesting discussions about the difference between childlike style and poor execution, we deemed it our least favorite show of the evening, unfortunately.

It was an epic adventure all around, even though we only managed to visit eight (is that all?) of the fifty-some stops on the list.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next Art Walk, and I'm planning on visiting more of the galleries (and revisiting some we already saw, as well) before then.  

Call for Entries: March Posting

Here's a list of upcoming calls.  April seems like something of a slow month.  I haven't been finding nearly as many listings for it as I would expect.

March

March 6 - Bead Dreams  
March 7 - Her Love Made Visible

March 7 - World Championship Belt Buckle

March 7 - Botanical
March 9 - Gateway to Imagination
March 10 - Visual Arts Alliance 29th Juried Open Exhibition
March 15 - VMRC Juried Art Exhibition
March 16 - Art Unleashed
March 18 - Masur Museum 49th Annual Juried Competition
March 19 - Through That Which Is Seen

March 31 - Treasured

April 

April 1 - After Dark

April 6 - Beyond Borders: Experimentation and Innovation in Enameling
April 14 - Fish Follies 

April 15 - Women's Jewelry Association Scholarship

April 18 - Magnitude 7.8

April 20 - MarinMOCA Summer National Juried Exhibition
April 24 - Upstream People’s 14 Annual Contemporary Art Juried Online International Exhibition
April 30 - re:Told