Love Angeles Magazine®

One Man’s Trash…

Source: EcoFabulous - Reusing old items (like furniture) tops the eco-list of planet conscious peeps everywhere, no question. But as much as we’d love to add a little pre-loved flavor to our home, the challenge often lies in picturing that discarded dresser or crumbling credenza living in your place when it’s just so… trashed. After a trip to Brooklyn based home décor company, Nightwood, it makes the visioning process a breeze: they gather, recover, and repurpose unwanted pieces and offer beautiful, one-of-a-kind goods.

Founded in 2008 by Nadia Yaron and Myriah Scruggs, Nightwood was born out of a necessity for furnishing their own apartment without busting the bank. The ladies soon discovered a knack for artful deconstruction and reconstruction of vintage furniture, using salvaged wood scraps, low-VOC paints, water-based finishes, and organic, natural fabrics. Today, Nightwood offers the best of what repurposing furniture should be: low-impact, natural, and downright gorgeous!

Check out their gallery to browse past projects; if you see something you like, contact them and they’ll customize a piece that’s perfect for you!

Los Angeles Art

Source: xlablog - Here in Los Angeles, we have so many ways in which to appreciate art. At one time, "supporting the arts" might have meant getting dressed up and going to the opera or a high-end gallery, or opening up the checkbook to write a fat check. It might have seemed a little exclusive to those of us with a modest income. But art has become so much more democratic now, and much more accessible.

I'm thankful to live in a city with so much talent and that produces so much. It's amazing how much art is simply there for me to see on a daily basis. Right near my house is a beautiful mural depicting the history of Los Angeles. Every morning, I descend the stairs of the North Hollywood redline station and am surrounded by public art reflective of a NoHo community. Almost every day, there's some live music performance happening near my house or near the office. And of course, working for ExperienceLA I come across so many fun and interesting theatre performances, art exhibitions, live music, etc. that I wish I had more time in my life to simply attend.

What I love about experiencing the arts is that it doesn't have to be stiff and formal. I can go to an art gallery in jeans and sneakers to see drawings on whiteboard, or to see the orchestra perform on casual Fridays. Art is actually fun! If you had told me as a child that going to an art gallery or to see the orchestra was fun, I would've looked at you like you were from another planet.

"Art" to me may not mean the same thing to you. But that's the beauty of it. Art is democratic, and is what you want it to be. Get dressed up, or dressed down. Go see Rembrandt, or comic books. See Dudamel conduct the LA Phil at the Disney Concert Hall, or just a dude and his guitar at your local cafe.

Since January is LA Arts Month, take advantage of some of the discounts and special offers. Throughout the year, don't forget about the museums with their free days. Check out the multiple discount outlets for deals on theatre tickets. Visit ExperienceLA's calendar for free & family-friendly events. The opportunities to experience art are endless, and there really is something for all tastes, budgets and schedules. So go on, get out, and more importantly, have fun supporting the arts!

The Art of Creativity

Source: Forth Magazine - The Art of Creativity is Jim Wooden’s new video series devoted to exploring and revealing the workings of the inner artist. These profiles are a fascinating look at the artisan’s world and are a powerful way to connect the audience to the art.

Those already documented by Mr. Wooden include painter Yvette Gillis, 2009 Edward Albee Playwright Award Winner Neil Wechsler, and established collector Dallas Price-Van Breda. Check back weekly for updated installments of Mr. Wooden’s work.

'Passing Strange' Musical Brings it All Back Home to L.A.

Source: Culture Monster - "Passing Strange" may be an L.A. story, rising from an appealing chapter in the history of L.A.’s indie-rock scene, but until now the hometown public has had to settle for the original cast CD and reports echoing from stages in Berkeley and the Big Apple.

The acclaimed rock musical by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, who rose to appreciation, if not exactly fame, as the singer-guitarist and bassist of the L.A. band the Negro Problem, will pass at last before Angeleno eyes Thursday from 8:30 to 11 p.m., as KCET gives Spike Lee’s film of the Broadway show its wide Southern California television premiere (it had a single screening last August to open the Downtown L.A. Film Festival).

The script, which netted Stew (the stage name of Mark Stewart)  a Tony award last year for best book of a musical, is a liberally fictionalized treatment of his own early days as a middle-class black kid smitten by punk rock and French New Wave cinema. In the show, whose songs Stew wrote with Rodewald, his alter ego lights out for Europe to blaze his path as a budding artiste, only to be called back home sadder and maybe wiser. Stew plays a central role as the onstage singing and guitar-playing narrator and commenter on the action, while Daniel Breaker plays his younger self. Rodewald is part of the band that’s half-sunk into holes in the stage like musical prairie dogs.

The play premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2006, transferred to an off-Broadway staging at the Public Theatre the following year, and moved to Broadway and ran for five months during 2008.

Lee loved the show and filmed two performances of the staging by its director and co-creator, Annie Dorsen; after it closed, he reconvened the ensemble and band without an audience to get additional footage. After film distributors passed, PBS snapped it up for its "Great Performances" series.

It’ll be interesting to see whether an L.A. theater company ever produces “Passing Strange,” either with Stew (who lives in Berlin), or an actor in his stead.

Lost Generation

Source: YouTube - A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite. This is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant. Make sure you read as well as listen forward and  backward.

This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "U @ 50" by AARP. This  video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and WATCH IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH!!!

Mandolinist Extraordinaire Chris Thile

Source: culturemonster - Mandolinist extraordinaire Chris Thile is only 28, but already he has shocked or changed the world in which he operates several times.

First, there was his breakout work with the acoustic trio Nickel Creek. More recently with the Punch Brothers, he wrote a large-scale song cycle for bluegrass band called “The Blind Leaving the Blind” (Nonesuch). As historical analogies to Thile, I would nominate Duke Ellington or Astor Piazzolla, who also tried to extend their once-humble idioms (jazz and tango, respectively) into ambitious concert forms while remaining rooted to their bases.

But rather than develop that line, Thile’s surprising and often amazing new Mandolin Concerto leaves bluegrass in the rear-view mirror for now. This is not crossover fluff, nor a PBS-friendly “Appalachia Waltz” fusion. This is a serious, total immersion into 20th century classical music, which Jeffrey Kahane and his Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra eagerly took on at the Alex Theatre on Saturday night.

Roxy 365: A Year at the Roxy Theatre

Care For a Bite Out of the Great Wall of China?

Source: Yahoo! - (BEIJING) The Great Wall never looked so tasty: a team of Chinese confectioners have built a 10 meter (33 ft) long replica of the structure entirely out of chocolate in a bid to entice Chinese to eat more of the sweet stuff.

The chocolate wall is made from solid dark chocolate bricks stuck together with white chocolate and is one of the attractions at the World Chocolate Wonderland exhibition and trade show which will open to the public later this month.

Chocolatier Wang Qilu said his version of the ancient wall was a feat of engineering in itself, with a carefully constructed crumbling section at one end to resemble the real thing. He also had to make sure his materials did not melt.

"You have higher and lower levels and you have to fit each brick into place, one by one, to build it up, it's difficult," he said.

Up to 80 tons of chocolate were used in making the displays, which include a mini-army of 560 chocolate replicas of the famous Terracotta Warriors standing to attention on a layer of chocolate flakes.

The show's general manager, Tina Zheng, said she hoped the displays would give chocolate a boost in the Chinese market and its billion-plus consumers.

"Chocolate has not been around in China that long, it doesn't have that several-thousand-year history that it does in the West which has made chocolate as common as milk or fruit," she said.

"While in China, chocolate is a specialty or something given to children, in general, it is not widely known."

Local and foreign chocolate manufacturers will take part in the show, she added.

Eighteen Days in Tehran

Source: Yes! - Abdi Sami hopes to create more understanding between the people of Iran and the United States. Here, he shares his visual diary from an 18-day journey taken in Iran in late October 2009. "Having watched the post-election turmoil in Iran on television, I wondered what it would be like to walk the streets and talk to young people. The youth are the future of Iran," he says. "Most of them were not born before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. They see their future not based on the values of the past, but based on how they envision their future." Sami captures daily life with his camera and accompanies the photographs with his observations: "It is quite exciting to walk the streets of Tehran, to take the metro and buses, and to be curious," he says. "In Tehran, one witnesses contradictions in everyday life: the opposites of modern versus traditional, religious versus secular. Welcome to Tehran." See more pics here...

Ms. Spider & The Case For Expressive Arts

Source: JenniferLothrigel.com - As many of you know, art is a very important part of my life. The creative process has always been one my most dear methods of transforming the unconscious material that can sometimes come up to 'bite' us. Last year I completed my certification in Expressive Arts and through that process I began to integrate art into my work more and more. When I say art, I speak of creative expression in all of its many forms. I view creative expression as an essential part of being a whole individual. Further, I would say that I view the creative process as a powerful way to obtain wholeness. It has certainly been so in my personal experience. I wanted to share an example of this with you from a recent 'Intuitive Painting' experience that I had. You will find the painting below (at the end of the note) along with the writing that I did about the painting (this is a way that I process what has 'shown up' through my intuitive creative expression.) Following, the writing I share an example of how I work with the creative process when working with clients and in workshops.

This is the writing that I did about her. What I do, is once I have painted I sit down and dialogue with the painting. I simply ask that the painting reveal why it has come to me. I don't try to 'figure it out' rather, listen to what it has to say as if it is a wise messenger who has come bearing valuable information.

This is what Ms. Spider had to say: "I have come creeping out of your unconscious womb space to let you know that there is debris down there that is getting in my way of maintaining a beautiful and vibrant web. I want this cleared because my web is being weighted down.

Please listen to me seriously, because if you do not, I will bite. And my bite is very painful. I am not afraid of dark places, or what I find there and this is how I am a gift to you. I do not fear what I may find or doubt my ability to face what seems to be too scary to look at. I do not doubt my ability to take on the largest of monsters. I can see in the dark. This is my advantage."

Additionally, I had been having dreams that mirrored the message of this painting. The process that I used with this painting is what I teach in my classes when we use 'Intuitive Painting'. Everything is energy and symbols hold so much energy for us. There is so much in symbols for us to dive into. In intuitive painting, I teach how to pay attention to energy and then the painting process becomes a listening exercise where we listen with our hands. In this process, we are following the energy throughout the entire painting. It is very exciting and curious to wonder what will appear. What symbols will reveal themselves to us? In the painting above, I had no intentions and this wonderful, very feminine spider came with such a valuable message for me.

I should add that prior to painting this, I prayed, I meditated and I did a ritual to connect with my deepest aspects of myself as well as my most Spiritually connected parts of myself. I use this process also in my classes and my individual session work. Following the dialogue with the painting there is much more exploration to be done. I often will use Voice Dialogue with painting and discover parts of myself or my clients that are similar to the painting and listen to what they have to say. I often will have clients dance the painting and discover how it feels in their bodies. Or write a poem about the painting.

By spending time with the painting we can see where there is personal growth that is beckoning us. And this gives us a place to work from. With this, I may then, use Shamanic work such as Soul retrieval. And I most always do a ceremony to initiate the arrival or the exit of what has been painted in or out of my life. Sometimes paintings are parts of us that are dying and other times, they are parts that are being born into our experience.

In individual sessions we don't do large paintings such as the one above due to time constraints but we will use watercolors or acrylics and then work much like what I described above.

Thanks for allowing me to share in my process. If you have any questions about the process or working individually this way I am happy to answer. For more visit www.JenniferLothrigel.com

Neha Dhupia Goes Natural

Source: ecorazzi - Bollywood actress Neha Dhupia has become the latest Indian star to promote the green scene - this time in a new calendar shot by ace photographer Jatin Kampani. Each scene shows Neha as different avatars of the elements of nature.

“I grabbed this opportunity of making people aware of today’s need to protect the environment,” the 29-year-old said. “This initiative is very close to my heart.”

Some more beautiful additional pics of Dhupia can be found here!

TED Fellow Colleen Flanigan

Source: break - Colleen Flanigan is a visual, performing and environmental artist, who is known for her large, 3-D steel drawings woven with wire by children in large group projects. Watch this film about her response to the destruction of coral reefs and see how you respond. www.nokia.com/responsiveness

TED Fellow Colleen Flanigan

Giant Trees of Switzerland

Source: Swissinfo - Unknown natural wonders of the world - a homage to the "gentle giants" - Michel Brunner, a graphic artist and author of "Giant Trees of Switzerland", has been measuring and photographing giant trees in Europe for more than ten years. He has listed more than 2,000 trees, of which more than 1,000 are in Switzerland.  (Photos: Michel Brunner and André Hübscher; selected by Rolf Amiet, swissinfo.ch)

 

VIEW THE ENTIRE PHOTO GALLERY HERE

Malibu Rock Kept Threatening to Roll

Source: LA Times - With a steel net and cable, the 116-ton boulder was safely brought down a cliff onto Pacific Coast Highway in 1979. A giant piece of it was turned into a sculpture depicting actor John Wayne.

"It was like a scene out of a sci-fi movie: A behemoth threatens an innocent town from atop a cliff, shrugging off all capture attempts.

Only this real-life besieger was a 116-ton boulder, which gave indications in February 1979 that it might plunge onto Pacific Coast Highway and possibly squash a BMW or two, if not some beachfront architecture.

The innocent town was Malibu, so naturally elements of show biz were involved.

It was movie producer/ writer Robert Radnitz who led a campaign lobbying Caltrans to bring the big rock down from its 186-foot-high perch.

He was understandably nervous: His home lay in its potential path on the ocean side of PCH. Radnitz estimated that the hulk had slipped 20 feet in the previous two weeks.

PCH was closed to traffic, making it the perfect gathering spot for dozens of onlookers during the 40-hour drama.

A few watched from kayaks. One viewer was sculptor Brett-Livingstone Strong, who said he wanted a piece of the Malibu rock so he could fashion a mini-Mt. Rushmore: a 3-foot-high bust of then-Gov. Jerry Brown, alongside the words, "For President."

Yes, the same Jerry Brown who is now state attorney general. But the hunk of sandstone wasn't being cooperative. A 2,500-pound steel net was dropped on it by a helicopter, but efforts to loosen the boulder from above failed.

At one point, a fire hose was attached to a hydrant and aimed at the big rock. A continuous stream of water slammed into it for more than two hours.

The Caltrans contractor in charge of capturing the giant told The Times that he had come up with the idea after his father-in-law said to him: "Why don't you wash it down?"

A reporter asked if his father-in-law was an engineer. "No," replied the contractor. "He's an accountant." Alas, the hosing failed to bring down the boulder.

Finally, after more than a day and a half of struggle, an inch-thick cable was attached to the steel-webbed net.

The cable was fed through a pulley-like device on PCH and secured to a huge four-wheeled skip loader parked about 400 feet down the road.

Darkness was falling, "turning the boulder into a hulking silhouette," when the skip loader began to pull the cable, The Times reported.

At first, only a few fragments broke loose. Then a rumble could be heard.

Wrap Your Mind Around This Photo

Source: Digg - It took me the better part of five minutes to trace this one back...