FUN in LA: Salvation Mountain

To be honest, I don't even remember when or where I first heard about Salvation Mountain. It's possible that I first saw it during it's cameo in Into the Wild, or in the A Beautiful Mess archives, or that I just saw a picture on tumblr somewhere. The first time that I thought of it as a place that I could actually go see was when my mom and I went to Palm Springs in 2012, and I wanted to make a detour to see it on the way. We were planning on going, but we ended up just staying in Palm Springs where there was air conditioning. (I don't know why we always end up going into the desert in August, but there you go. Driving out to the middle of nowhere in temperatures over 110 degrees doesn't always seem like the best idea.)

So what I'm getting at is that I've wanted to see Salvation Mountain for about 2 years now, so I was very excited when I brought it up to my friend Isabel and she said she wanted to see it too. We decided on a day and made plans to trek out to Niland to see Leonard Knight's creation. I was so sad when I heard just days before our trip that Leonard had died, and that news cast a different light on my experience of the mountain. It went from a piece of art to one man's life's work.

It took us about three hours to get down there, and the last hour of the drive there was literally nothing around. Just road and desert. When we finally caught sight of the mountain it was this big splash of color rising out of the emptiness. We walked all around it, inside it, and climbed the mountain and I was just blown away by it. Just the sheer size of it is incredible, and then you realize that one man built the whole thing and it becomes that much more mind-blowing.

There are signs on the mountain designating it as an American Folk Art site, and Isabel said something I thought was really interesting, that Salvation Mountain felt "very American." She talked about how the monuments and tourist attractions in Europe are usually religious, and this was like the American counterpart. I liked that a lot, it got the American Studies minor part of my head buzzing. I totally agree with her. I think in relation to the European cathedrals and shrines that were built as tributes to God over hundreds of years by thousands of people, it does seem really fitting that the American version would be built by one man all by himself out in the desert. It was hard to shake the John the Baptist vibes I got from the place too; a voice crying out in the wilderness that God is love.

Deck the Halls! Part 2

So for the second installment of this series I'll talk about the star shaped ornaments that inspired my trip to Michael's in the first place.

Again, these were inspired by a pin (this is a trend you'll see carry out for the rest of the Christmas crafts). I loved the look of these piñata-esque star ornaments so I decided to try to make some. I started out with 6 paper mache stars and painted them all a pearl white that I found in the craft closet.

After the base coats were all dry I set out cutting and fringing strips of paper in 5 different colors. I chose gold, silver, and blue mylar with white and blue tissue. Once I had the paper cut and fringed I covered each facet of each star. These ornaments were substantially more time consuming, which is why halfway through I decided three was probably enough. I love the look of the finished product but in the future I'll probably stick with just tissue paper on a project like this. The mylar did not want to cooperate with being glued down to the star base. So if you take on something like this, just keep that in mind.







After hours and hours of fringing paper, I wanted to do something easy with the last three stars. I was really happy with how the pearl white came out, so I decided to glitter the lines and leave it at that. Some of them ended up a little sloppier than others, but they're going to look dazzling on the tree and that's all that matters.




Part three coming soon! Catch up on part one here.

<3

FUN in LA: The Brewery Art Walk

The Brewery is an art colony in LA, and if you live here you've probably seen the smokestack from the freeway. When it was built in the early 1900s the building was a steam power plant; it later became a Pabst Blue Ribbon factory which eventually got converted into artist lofts. Twice a year the colony has an art walk that opens the space up to the public to walk through the studios and see the artist's work.

I absolutely love open studios. One of my favorite Mills events is at the end of each semester when the Studio Art MFAs have an open studio. I love seeing how each artist interacts with the space they're given almost as much as seeing the art itself. The Brewery's art walk adds a whole other element to the studio, because so many of them are live/work spaces. So not only was it like walking in an art museum, it was also like walking into 100 different houses. Being the naturally inquisitive (nosy) person that I am, it was right up my alley. 

Since there was a big crowd at the art walk a lot of the artists were busy talking with other people, and quite a few were not friendly at all, but we did get to talk to a couple that were incredibly nice. One of them was the artist behind these trees.

They're so beautiful! He talked with us for a while about where he gets the bonsai from and what he does before he starts building in them. He said he worked on this piece for almost 10 years, which is incredible. 

The other person we talked to was the girlfriend of one of the artists. Their loft was one of the most beautiful spaces I saw at the Brewery, and being able to talk to her about it is probably what made me appreciate it more. She told us that when her boyfriend moved in the room was literally a blank square, but the finished product looked like it could have come out of a magazine. Most of their living area was roped off upstairs but the kitchen was downstairs and it was just gorgeous. Their oven is the same model as the oven in Bewitched! And the rest of the downstairs was their workspace. I gushed about how in love with her kitchen I was, and I told her that it was nice to be able to see the studios because the space itself becomes an art piece in a way. 

Basically I left the art walk desperately wanting a studio. It was a very good day. 

Aside from the studios themselves, the art was amazing. There was such a wide range of so many different aesthetics and styles. If you live in the LA area you should definitely check out the Brewery's website for info on the next art walk. 

<3

Spontaneous Order

One of the more exciting things about living on a college campus towards the end of the semester is the flurry of artistic events that happen in the last few weeks of school as everyone is presenting their theses.

Last weekend my friend JT's senior art exhibition 'Spontaneous Order' opened at the Art Museum. It wasn't a solo exhibition, so I knew a few other Studio Art seniors who had work on display, but in my humble (and biased) opinion JT's work really stole the show. All of her pieces were embroidered; she embroidered a take-out box, a cup of noodles, a writing exercise book, and a text piece translating a phrase from Chinese to English with Google Translate. The detail is incredible and I was so proud of JT and so happy for her. Of course, the other work on display is also amazing, and if you're in the Bay Area I highly encourage you to come check it out.

I am often completely blown away by the sheer beauty of the things my friends create, whether I'm looking at JTs art, or listening to Estrella's compositions or hearing Ali sing. I'm so lucky to be surrounded and inspired by such amazing ladies.