Mind Trip Central

This is a photo I took about a week ago in La Mirada,

just a photo of the blank side of a house,

but... look at the shadows!

ridiculous, I know.

anyway,

I want you to try this:

stare at the center of the lightest part of the house for about 5-10 seconds...

does it, or does it not look almost like a repetition of the sky above?

ah, insane!

Perfectionism

Both of these photographs I don't really distinctly remember taking. I vaguely remember that I thought the shapes of the houses were interesting and that I loved the fact that there were power-lines behind both of the houses.

But now, while I was sorting through photographs from the past few weeks, in the Philadelphia airport on my way home, I couldn't believe how ridiculously perfect these two photographs are.

They almost look like idealized versions of what a suburban California neighborhood might look like.

But... all that being said, I think that's why I like them so much. They're just a little too weird, not to be seen.

Guerilla Art: A Yarn Mural

My last project for my 4-D design class was to make "Guerilla Art".

In response, I decided to graffiti the fence of McNally Field, creating a yarn mural.

Initially when I envisioned it I planned on making it so big, so large, so "WOW".

But... after 5 hours of work, I had only gotten 4 lines of the fence done. I spent Wednesday night shaking in the cold, trying to wrap yarn over & over again, through the fence until 4 am.

It only got more depressing by the hour--with light, after light, after light turning off in Hope Hall as people went to bed. I finally had to stop working when my hands froze too much that I couldn't hold the yarn anymore without dropping it.

I went back during the day on Thursday and tried to finish it up before class--and literally every 5-10 minutes there was someone who would walk by and comment on it--for 3 hours straight, saying "YOU CAN DO IT!!", "What is this?", "LOOKING GREAT!", "Is this Art?".

But without further ado, the yarn mural:

Aren't the colors simply delicious?

public transportation

This past week I went to Seattle, to visit my brother Isaac--and it was fantastic, fabulous, restful, and exciting as we explored the incredible city together. Isaac doesn't own a car so we did a ton, a ton of walking, and a bit of public transportation.

And lately, especially the past few months-- I am realizing more and more how much I absolutely love public transportation--buses, trains, ferries, the metro--all of it. The metro especially though. The metro gets me so good. I love the weirdness of it--the stillness of the inside of the metro car, the way people are waiting, waiting, waiting, their hollow blank stares as they zone out the window, and I especially love that contrasted with the changing scene outside the window--wizzing by, not stopping to let your eye catch-up.

Mexican Minimalism

I went to Mexico last Saturday and was blown away by the plethora of color, color, color! Color everywhere. So much. It just made everything so much more exciting & interesting & beautiful, in the most bizarre way. I didn't take a ton of photos, & and all of them were taken from the car, but out of the 20 of them, I was obsessed with how nearly every picture was of a building of an entirely different color, more ridiculous than the last.

And so, here is one of my favorites:

Mexican Minimalism, ladies & gentlemen.

I know, I know, the color isn't too crazy in this picture, but if you want to see the really crazy stuff look at my facebook album "Mexican Color"

Dad's Birthday Card

So my Dad's birthday was November 3rd (& he turned 55!!), but... I was late making him a card, and then I found out he was coming out to visit me (tomorrow), and I decided it was totally okay to put off making it, since I would just give it to him in person.

I spent approximately a billion hours making this. Really though. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how long it took. Except of course I was just reveling in the joy of making it the whole time.

Oh also, I tried to do a design that I normally wouldn't do and so I essentially stole the design from this incredible stationary company (that is too expensive for me) called Welcome to the Look (http://www.welcometoloop.com/doodlespark.html). And really, this card isn't much of a "Father's Birthday Card", but whatev's!

Enjoy.