Tag: modern art

3 Months

Here we are again – at the end of another month! So much has happened in the last few weeks, its almost like we’re living with a new little person! Yes, emphasis on the “person” – Ruby has officially made the transition from “newborn” to full on “baby”! She has quite a little personality shining through … she makes lots of sounds, bats her eyes and smiles at people, “tells us” if she’s bored or tired, and shrieks with glee if she really likes something. She is completely aware of the environment around her, and now does a whole lot more than that newborn baby routine (AKA  eat, sleep, poop – repeat). And, we also have to mention her new found independence … Ruby sleeps happily in her own room now, in her own crib (Much harder on us than it was for her!).

And now for some three month stats …

Not sure about height/weight, but boy has she grown! The general consensus is that she’s a tall little girl … she outgrew her 0-3 month clothes because her toes had reached to the end of most everything, so she’s now in 3-6 months.  If I had to guess, she’s probably 24 in. long now, and at least 13.5 lbs.

Current likes:
Her exersaucer!
“Standing up” (she’s determined …)
Bath time!
Eating toys
Talking to Mommy & Daddy

Current dislikes:
Getting out of the bath tub
Taking naps – there’s just too much going on in this girl’s world apparently!

Notable events:
Sleeping in her crib now!
100 Days Celebration (check it out here if you missed it).
1st trip to the museum
Rolling over from back to tummy

One big change this month was Ruby got a lot more social. She’s been to Stroller Strides (an exercise group for Mommy, where you do a LOT more than just push a stroller!), Baby Yoga, and she just started a class at My Gym in Huntington Beach. It’s a cute class … she does little baby exercises and has free reign over all of the equipment in the space. She didn’t mind at all when we stuck her in the giant ball pit … she just sat in there and looked at us like, “What’s the big deal?”

Also very exciting for Ed & I, Ruby had her 1st trip to the museum! We headed up to LACMA to check out a few current exhibits and introduce Ruby to some of the iconic modern staples.
Here’s Ruby meeting Jeff Koons … (along with Michael … and Bubbles …)

She also got to meet Andy …

Along with a little modern German minimalism for good measure …

And, she also became familiar with the new gallery of Korean Art … a gorgeous collection!

It was a big day, and after taking in all of that culture, she was exhausted!

(See more pics of the museum day here)

And finally, as mentioned … Ruby is really into “eating” her toys. After a month of experimenting, she has tried to stick just about every single finger in her mouth, as well as her entire fist. Now that the fingers/fist are old news … she wants big shiny toys in there now, and she’s not going to accept it if its just not physically possible!

She’s probably going to hate me for this later, but here is our little genius … extremely exacerbated by this darn object. Fun or frustrating? You be the judge.

(Click here if you can’t see the video)

Summer Fun Day

Today was wide open and we had an itch to get on the road – Ed sold his beloved Mini this week, but it was happily replaced by his favorite car, a VW Jetta SportWagen! We decided it was a good day to break it in. We decided to head south down PCH and see where the day would take us. Too bad the sun never came out today – but the drive was gorgeous nonetheless …

We were hungry for lunch, so we hit up Yelp to find a new good place to try. We stumbled upon Crab Zone in Laguna Beach. Don’t be fooled by the cheesy name, this place really delivered! It is a seafood restaurant offering traditional type items like Clam Chowder and Seafood Gumbo, but they also have an interesting Asian Fusion twist, too. There was definitely a lot to choose from.

The 5-star ratings were pretty hard to ignore, and everyone seemed to be raving over the Dungeness Crab with Garlic and Pepper Butter Sauce, so Ed went ahead and ordered it. They really weren’t messing around – look at the size of that thing! Although he said it was probably the messiset meal he’s ever eaten, Ed swears it was worth the mess. They actually chop the legs off and cook everything in a wok, and then they “assemble” the crab back on to the plate. You get a lot of attention when its brought out to the table!


I decided to order a cup of the gumbo and get some steamed King Crab Legs. Wow – those did not disappoint either! Everything was delicious! Once again, big thanks to the Yelpers for getting us to a new destination!

After our awesome lunch, we decided to head over to OCMA (Orange County Museum of Art) for their 15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol exhibition. From OCMA’s website:

15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol explores a diverse range of photographic portraits from early modernism, to photographs of celebrities from the 1930s to 1960s, photojournalistic street photography from the 1960s, and contemporary portraiture.

All of the photos were fantastic! This photo taken by Lawrence Schiller in 1962 was one of our favorites. See Alfred Hitchcock in the rearview mirror of the car?

They also had a pretty cool photo booth in the exhibit so that you could capture your own 15 minutes of fame. Here we are with our best attempts at celebrity!
 

We also love OCMA because of its beautifully designed modern space.
Here’s Ed looking dapper in the tulip chair …

And me … looking pregnant!

MOCA’s First Thirty Years

mocapink

Ed & I headed up to catch the awesome First Thirty Years exhibit at MOCA two weeks ago, and being the modern art lovers we are, we have to say we enjoyed every bit of it! The exhibit is sort of a “greatest hits” of modern art. Of course, there are many pieces that you’ve seen before – but nonetheless, it was really cool to have them all in spot. Be sure to click the exhibition link as mentioned above, the site has a really great photo gallery that shows a lot of the work! (Unfortunately, Ed & I were only armed with the iPhones, so we didn’t get many pics!)

Probably the most impressive was the photography collection. I have been fascinated by photos of people ever since I was a kid, and two of my favorite photographers were on display:  Garry Winogrand & Diane Arbus. Both of them have a real knack for capturing the most odd, yet beautiful images of ordinary (and in Diane Arbus’ case, NOT-so-ordinary!) people. Doesn’t hurt that they capture some fun 60s stuff, which both Ed & I love. Here are a few of my favorites from the show:

arbus_doglady arbus_giant

arbus_sunbathers arbus_twins

Diane Arbus: (top) Lady Bartender at Home with Souvenir Dog, 1964, A Jewish Giant at Home with his Parents, 1970; (bottom) A Family on the Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, N.Y., 1968, Identical Twins, 1967

winogrand_zoo

winogrand_spacectr

Garry Winogrand: (top) Couple in Central Park Zoo, 1967; (bottom) Kennedy Space Center, 1969

There were lots more that we really loved and hadn’t seen before.  Ed looked pretty space age in RM669 by Doug Wheeler (1969), and I loved Mirror/Mirror-Table/Table (1964) by Richard Artschwager!

moca_c&e

Go see First Thirty Years at MOCA before it’s gone!

Another Sunday Funday in Los Angeles

This past Sunday we headed up to Van Nuys for the annual Best of France and Italy car show. This show was basically Ed’s dream – it featured French and Italian cars mostly from the 1950s-1980s. It was not your typical car show! I have learned quite a bit through osmosis just by being with Ed for so long – so I must admit, I really enjoyed it too! Many of the cars you just wouldn’t see here in the States, and we were impressed by the variety and condition of the ones on display!


This little number was one of our favorites – a 70s model Citroen DS21! Ed and & I LOVE these cars. They look so space-age and so unique. Just a bonus that this car was red!

The DS models have these really cool lights on the back and just don’t look like any other car! We’d love to own one, but they are really tough to find stateside, and they are waaay out of the price range!

This is a fun 60s era ad for the Citroen – so space-age!
citroen2

Some other favorites were this Caravelle Convertible …

And, who could forget the Renault “Le Car”?!?

Then, as if Ed’s morning couldn’t get any better, he unexpectedly spotted his favorite car ever – an East German communist Trabant! These are extremely rare and even more random – this car had Hungarian plates!

Ed stands happily by the Trabi

After leaving Van Nuys, we decided to do something completely different – we headed down to Culver City to see Sanrio’s Three Apples art exhibition, which was celebrating 35 years of Hello Kitty!

three_apples_top

Hello Kitty was such a staple for girls in my generation growing up … the pencil cases, stickers, lip gloss, you name it – every little girl coveted their Hello Kitty stuff, and she’s certainly maintained her staying power through the ages! Three Apples was cool because in addition to showcasing TONS of HK merchandise throughout the years, they also had a lot of favorite low-brow artists showing work inspired by HK. The space was impressive and we had an awesome time!

Here are a few favorite art pieces from the show:

(L): Mermaid w/Hello Kitty by Gary Baseman, (R): Awesome Velvet Hello Kitty Elvis!


Tara McPherson’s HK piece


Loved the colors and “classical” twist to this one.


Crazy Lady Gaga Hello Kitty Portraits!


A darker side to HK

As I mentioned earlier, the show also did an entire product retrospective. All the stuff they had there was amazing! Our pictures don’t really do it justice – there were entire rooms just filled to the brim with stuff – but here are a few:

Notice the dress made of stuffed HK’s!


An obsolete “plug in” phone I would’ve loved as a kid! And, lots of HK sweet treats.

Just when our day couldn’t have possibly gotten more fun, we had dinner plans with our dear friends Britt & Wade. Wade was making us dinner – and when he cooks, its ALWAYS amazing! He ended up serving a beautiful salad and the tastiest beef stew we’d ever had!

Salad with greens, avocado, yellow and red tomatoes, onions and toasted walnuts = YUM!


An amazing Beef Stew to welcome the fall – who cares if it was 90 degrees that day? :)

And that concludes another Sunday Fun Day!

Museums and Fossils and Canters … oh, my!


This weekend, our 3 nieces and nephew get to spend some quality time with us. Last night, our oldest nieces Kendall & Jordan got to spend the night at our house, and then we had an action-packed day planned for them. We have been waiting for such a long time to take the big girls to an art museum … and then we decided to hit up the La Brea Tar Pits, too!

However, no time spent at Uncle Ed and Auntie Carrie’s house can go without a little Guitar Hero. Check out these rocker-girls in action!

After a fair amount of rocking ensued, we headed off to LACMA for an introduction to some modern art!

We were particularly excited for the girls to see the “Happy Happy” installation in the Your Bright Future exhibit. Basically, Happy Happy is bunch of brightly colored kitchen items from the 99 Cent Store, all hung from up high. It’s huge! You can walk through it, play in it – its fascinating for both adults and kids alike. I think the girls were really surprised to see how art isn’t just a painting on a wall or a drawing in a sketchbook.

We bought the girls sketchbooks and colored pencils so they could draw at the museum if they were inspired, or they could simply write how they felt about a piece that they saw. I was excited that they really got into it:

Kendall and Jordan also got introduced to some of our favorite artists – Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Wassily Kandinsky!
Learning about Warhol …

Intrigued by Jeff Koons’ “Balloon Dog” …
koons_balloondog
Inspired by Kandinsky!

After exploring the museum, we walked around to the back, and noticed that the Happy Happy artist also had another similar exhibition that allowed the public to participate in!

The girls were really impressed by this, and we checked out all the random objects people incorporated into the piece:

All that art worked up our appetites, so we decided to hit up Canter’s to show Kendall & Jordan how all the cool kids do lunch in L.A.!

Matzo Ball Soup, Pickles and Bagel Chips … yep, we’re at one of the best Jewish Delis ever!

We were feeling good after lunch, so it was finally time to check out some fossils and Ice Age skeletons at the La Brea Tar Pits …

Once inside, there was lots of cool stuff to see – including lots of bones! Just a few of the monsters we saw …

They even have real volunteers in the Paleontology Lab cleaning up the bones and fossils right in front of you! The museum said that after all this time, they finally found a Woolly Mammoth with tusks intact. This is the very first time they have been able to salvage a full Mammoth! Inside the lab, they are calling him “Zed”. Here is part of Zed’s tusks:

Pretty cool stuff:

Everyone enjoyed the visit, but the girls were surprised at how strong the smell was. Here is Kendall’s summary:

And finally, the perfect end to a perfect day – we made a stop at Sprinkles for Kendall & Jordan’s first “original” gourmet cupcake. Only the best for our girls!

Check out the album for more awesome pics!

Kendall and Jordan visit
August 2009

Tomorrow’s agenda: Another big day out with Mikayla & Ethan!