Cayucos, Nov 2011

Yosemite

Words can't describe. Either can this photo, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what Yosemite Valley looked like the morning we woke up to the first snow of the winter. Granite peaks emerging out of the shifting clouds, covered in veins of white. The quiet of the valley further muted by the soft layer of snow. A welcome fireside game of chess at Ahwahnee. A herd of deer playing, uninterested in the people walking five feet away (and finally, the 12 point buck I had a stare-down with alone on the trail).

Like those granite peaks, I was stuck in the clouds most of the weekend, in a fog of introspection. It's difficult not to get lost in self-reflection in an environment like that. I re-emerged from the valley floor on Sunday with some new ideas and an appreciation for the snowy winters I have come to miss. 

el segundo, ca

San Onofre

morning air

ethereal

Chantry Flats

Jackie Treehorn

Lautner's Sheats-Goldstein Residence. A successful blurring of the boundary between indoor and outdoor space. I am especially in love with the entry sequence into this house - walking beneath the cantilevered edge of the roof through what feels like indoor space, but then again, feels like a jungle. You walk through a stainless steel gate that feels like the door to a safe, then over the koi pond and through a glass slider into the house. All of the exterior glass walls open in some way, as do the skylights overhead. Only in Southern California. Ah...the architectural possibilities... 

santa barbara

still life confetti

I don't usually post this kind of thing, but I came across Swedish artist Tove Mauritzson's work today and had to share it. Enjoy

Venice // March 2011

This is what I've been working on lately - multiple exposures. I hate digital photo manipulation, so I'm going to keep shooting this way until I get some skater busting a crazy air.. Frustrating because this would have been infinitely better, but that's what you get when you shoot multiple exposures on actual film and don't photoshop! Repetition yields results... we'll see what turns out on the next roll..

sketchbook

PV cove // 4.02.2011

out of the fire

We're working on a bar/music venue that was completely destroyed in a fire last year. The place is an empty shell right now, with shoring holding up the masonry walls. There is no roof on the building, except some of these 49' long steel girders. The girders pictured here had to be demo'd because they were damaged in the heat of the fire. Each one weighs around 3000 lbs. We had the guys save them for us so we can re-use them in the design of the actual bar (moving them around to bend them into the bar shape is going to be an exercise in logistics..).

I like the idea of the history of the place recorded in its new interior..more to follow!

Treasures

Treasures from the past couple of weeks: a gnarled piece of driftwood, a swiss cheese rock, a perfect round stone, a fully in-tact sand dollar, and a piece of sea glass. I'd tell you where they're from, but I'd have to kill you ;)

I'm sitting here watching Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo as I'm writing this post. 

I pulled this textile out the other day as a table cloth for a dinner celebrating some very special friends that were in town visiting. This happens to be my most favorite relic from my trip to Peru - appropriate to be watching this film from my laptop on this same table. Fitzcarraldo was filmed in the northern Peruvian jungle - Iquitos and Urubamba. We stayed in the South, in the Tambopata region, outside of Puerto Maldonado. 

A funny fact about the film: Mick Jagger was supposed to play a significant role, but shooting was delayed and he had to leave on tour. His entire part was deleted. 

getty fotografia

heavy metal

Metals field trip ;)

Who knew lead was so insidiously gorgeous? Also loved the bars of bronze and the red patchwork of the steel bar ends. 

the dining society

A friend of a coworker, Kevin Van, started THEDININGSOCIETY -

a monthly (almost) gathering of people interested in sampling some of the best food and drinks from some of the best local chefs and mixologists. I'd say half the experience was the venue itself, the old Echo Park Rec Center on Logan and Sunset - a space with giant ceilings, endless brick walls, and a long table under a simple string of lights. Great food, great conversation, great mix of strangers. 

The dinner pops up at a new location each time, and a new cast of chefs, mixologists and sommeliers creates an entirely unique dining experience. 

We [Breakform] made the table for Kevin - it was designed to fit within a budget, be easily broken down into segments that fit into a small Uhaul, able to be quickly assembled by two people, durable, and (goes without saying) nice on the eyes.. Welded steel angle frames with hand-finished plywood infill resting on a light gauge steel tube framework atop IKEA table legs. 

Of course while you're in the neighborhood, you have to stop by El Prado for a drink. 

it's cool to recycle

Envelopes can be so boring, so I decided to make some of my own. 

Ingredients:

(1) Paper grocery bag

(1) Geological Survey Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions

(1) Boring envelope you can open and trace

Rubber cement

Scissors

Pencil

The two layers are great because it's like a mullet: business in the front, party in the back (or inside in this case..you get the point). It also makes for a thicker envelope, which just feels nice and like you paid a lot for it, which we know you didn't. You can use old wrapping paper, newspaper, comics, phone book pages, sewing patterns....whatever you can rubber cement and fold without having a problem. Brown paper has such a great texture too - great for transfers if you really want to go to town.

Since I didn't want to glue these guys shut, I just found some stickers to do the job: 

chinatown day

Oscar Mayer Wiener in LA

C'mon...if any of you know me, you KNOW that the OMWM is the wallpaper on my phone...a drive-by snap shot of it parallel parked in a residential area (random) in my old Chicago neighborhood. So imagine my excitement when I saw it again the other day parked out back at Chez Jay. Glorious.

SUPRASENSORIAL

This exhibit at MOCA's Geffen was pretty great - re-creations of Latin American installation work, mostly from the '60s and '70s. All I can say is I wish I had known about the pool..

Watts, B&W

Some more to snack on from Watts

sk8 park, part dos

The sun was going down when I headed over to the skate park to see my friend Tim dominate..the lighting produced some gnarly grainy film when I shot into the sun, but fun to see what I got a month later. I love shooting film and constantly being surprised by what comes out of that tank when I finally get around to processing! 

-L

Throwbacks

It's so weird to imagine who that little person making these things was... Just a couple of funny things I found when my mom and I were going through old stacks of art projects we saved long ago. I got a kick out of the spattered blood all over the French and Indian War project...I'm surprised my teacher didn't send me to the office for some psych testing or something.

The letter is OBviously from George Bush senior, although the spelling probably more closely corresponds to George Dubbya. My sister and I were forward-thinking little kids..

-L