settle + explore

finally settled in berkeley. berkeley feels more like home than san francisco, which is where i'd initially wanted to move to, but the population boom and the traffic/parking situation out there can probably drive me nuts. plus, berkeley reminds me of my neighborhood in los angeles, atwater village, which i am still so very much in love with.

one thing i keep forgetting about the bay area, is how small it is. when i'm trying to get somewhere, i'm dumbfounded at how close everything is. i seriously can just walk within a 5-mile radius and get to most of the places i need to get to.

i went for a light hike the other day through tilden. this is lake anza. that last one is overlooking a part of the san pablo reservoir. i read that in the 1800s, there were nothing but wildflowers covering those fields. how awesome would it be if those wildflowers were still there?

i can't wait to do more hikes and explorations. friends have already made plans on going to yosemite and i've already agreed to run a 6-hour race. not entirely sure about the latter yet, but it's a no-pressure run so it could be fun.

macarena

macarena ruiz-tagle

atmosphere series (acrylic on watercolor paper): what kind of mood do these pieces put you in?

last light:
the photograph inside the frame is the image of the actual wall behind the frame. It represents the hidden dim space between the frame and the wall's surface.

seeing is forgetting:
Site specific installation of equilateral plexiglas triangles (3x300x300mm)... Triangle shapes slightly noticeable when reflecting light as if they were not meant to be seen by the viewer...

clay play, done! ...for now.

this concludes my play with clay in los angeles. i reached my goal of making a few 5-pound salad bowls, most of which will be gifted and hopefully appreciated because do you know how hard it is to throw five pounds of clay? i was trembling every time i tried to center and cone those things, but when i was able to do one, i couldn't help but keep throwing more and more of it. i also couldn't help pulling it to make it bigger. "just one more pull and it's done," i'd tell myself. then i'd pull again maybe twice more after that. it's a risk because at some point, there's a possibility it might collapse. sometimes it did, but when it works out more times than it doesn't, it just makes you want to keep going.

all this stuff is by no means perfect, but that's what i like about them. even the ones that didn't work out, i tried to salvage. those rough edges give character.

there have been a few people that i've connected with at the studio where i've been throwing. one in particular is rami kim. this woman is crazy productive. so inspiring. she does stop-motion animation, too, along with painting and various other things. she usually doesn't throw but handbuilds her clay, and she does it well! i traded a couple of bowls for a few of her thangs and i can say i'm proud to own them. her pieces are the sculpture in the bowl there with the two spoons.

(pardon, les photos sont mal.)

désastres de la guerre

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” 

― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum