clouds

followed the clouds this weekend...

around town...

Doug Wheeler's Rm 669 during one of several jury duty lunch breaks to MOCA, learning to transplant plants from Adam, light fixture made from pieces of a vintage sewing machine at Terroni, photos of tree shadows by Donna Wong at Euro Pan Bakery, and then spotting the Neutra font on the P7 parking structure at LAX, and this beauty on Mother's Day morning at Bottega Louie's cafe.

card making at the DWC

Spent the morning making cards with the ladies today. Met a lovely lady named Christina. Wishing her a happy and prosperous new year!

leaves

beautiful mess of leaves after a windy day! Not so common here in L.A. :)

palm tree leaf

palm tree leaves are HUGE
taller than me for sure
but they look so small looking from below

bits of the weekend

dusk view from my kitchen window; combo of my hand's shadow, my book, an old glass window and a sunny corner of the brand art library; halfway through gocco-ing a wedding invitation...

Bill Clinton

Last night we had the privilege of seeing and older, more relaxed Bill Clinton speak at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. He is part of a lecture series called Distinguished Speakers. What a great speaker armed with facts, genuinely passionate about his message, and always injecting just the right amount of humor make everyone feel comfortable. Admittedly long winded, he spoke for an hour and a half hardly looking at notes.

He spoke most about helping us create a framework from which to build an opinion about the overwhelming issues we hear about every day. It can also be a framework by which to make decisions about how we choose to live. This framework means understanding three things - that there is a lot of inequality in the world, that the world is interdependent, and the world is unsustainable.

There are people dying from malaria, tuberculosis. 80% of the people that die of these dirty water born diseases are children. This is inequality in an age where our country will hardly see the effects of these diseases. I've heard Bill Gates talk about this in regard to his efforts with his Gates Foundation. There are many countries who's citizens still live on two dollars a day. And regarding health care in our country, we are the only wealthy country who spends 17% of our incomes on health care without being able to insure everyone, most other wealthy nations only spend 10-11%.

Our actions affect everyone, prime example - the domino effect of last year's economic crisis.

We already know that the way we are using our natural resources is unsustainable. But did you know that the world's most energy efficient countries - Denmark, Sweden and Germany - became more prosperous by solving their issues of energy efficiency. Not only did fixing these problems save money and resources, it created more jobs lowering the unemployment rate, something our current president in pushing. The Kyoto Treaty also committed 44 countries to cut emissions to 1990 levels by (I forget what date), but only 4 of these countries will reach that goal.

Bill Clinton is also one of those amazing storytellers who transported us to a conversation he had with a man who survived Rwanda genocide. Of the 300,000 people who were brutally killed within a span of 90 days, 73 of them where part of his family up to first cousins. He talked about the part he played in the release of the journalists imprisoned and released in North Korea, and even showed compassion for Sarah Palin saying that she was placed in an impossible position when she was asked to debate in a national election.

Overall, excellent evening. Not enough young people though... Really felt like we got to know a former president more personally.

fires

Plumes of smoke from the 134 fwy of the Station fire.

Recently got to know a local firefighter. I asked what we could do to show our gratitude. He simply said to say thanks.

Yo Yo Ma

Seemed like everyone had been to the Hollywood Bowl this summer but us. Well, finally, last night, we made it to see celloist Yo Yo Ma who was a guest of Placido Domingo and the LA Philharmonic. It was brilliant. I've always wanted to see Yo Yo Ma live. His music is so vibrant and captivating. He himself was just charismatic, always engaging the orchestra and the audience. The encore that brought the young 10 year old musicians next to us to a standing ovation saying "Bravo, bravo!" was a solo piece from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and then a duet with Placido singing opera.

drying dishes

color inspiration in my sink.

Summer Sky

summer skies!

city at night

I love this view from a friend's front porch.

lemons

I made a big 3 gallon jug of lemonade with lemons from our Meyer lemon tree last Sunday for Mother's Day. It was SOOO good and refreshing! Today I picked this last harvest of the year for a co-weaver who will make lemonade for her daughter's graduation party.

Owl Drug Company

Walking through Old Town Pasadena last night and spotted this great relic at the front door of JCrew. Wish I would've been around for The Owl Drug Company :)

photo shoot

I was an art director in a previous life and always anticipated the excitement of a photo shoot - grueling but fun, lots of preparation and production for one packed day. I helped a friend document hers on video these last two days. These are all assistants on the first morning at the studio setting up. (The car is not part of the shoot!! So strange that it was there.)

5 minutes of prettiness

Yesterday, I had one of those moments where I felt surrounded by just that - a great moment. It was on Holly Street, the warm late afternoon light beamed from behind me and I found my shadow and my brown sandals walking on the gray concrete into a scattering of fallen pink flowers. It would be 5 minutes of prettiness that I knew would quickly disappear so I enjoyed it for a second and then tried to preserved the feeling.

Tomory Dodge

So lucky we were able to catch the Tomory Dodge show at ACME before it closed on Saturday. So wonderfully patterned and ephemeral, but also like someone's somewhat voided, but clear viewpoint of a floating landscape. In scale, up close, in a gallery setting took it to a whole different level. Can't forget the glossy and blended strokes, random, but not really. This is a shot of my favorite piece, Debris Field. Also loved the title of another which summed up the show for me - After Forever.

spring garden

planning our spring garden... we took a workshop at Everything Gardens this past weekend and planted seeds for a small herb and vegetable garden!

spring in the city

i've been seeing blossoms everywhere this last week....

Rivera

Some tapas we "experienced" on Friday night at Rivera - a large mild pepper soaked in vinegar filled with buratta cheese stenciled with fun-ny graphics using paprika(?); the leg of jamón ibérico de bellota sitting in front of me at all night, apparently, it came from a black haired pig that spent its last year of life roaming a forest eating only grass and acorns, therefore giving it it's nutty flavor, a certain authenticity comes with seeing the actual black hoof and bit of the hair left around it, the chef told us that keeping the hoof will become illegal in time... hmmm; and buttery homemade tortillas with embedded herbs.