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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Mad Skills Craft Club



Last night was the inaugural meeting of Mad Skills Craft Club. We decorated candles with images, glitter, sequins, toy parts, etc. Some people got inspired and made shadowboxes. It was a fun event, where we were able to get creative and make pretty things. You can see more images from the club here. I'm looking forward to next month already.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Mission District Murals


Mission District paper cut-out piece




Balmy Alley piece


I'm so happy to live near the mission district. I love the murals, and I became inspired to take photos recently on a beautiful day. I ended up dining at super cute St. Francis Fountain, highly recommended for yummy eats!

Armchair Travel


Maya stela at the de Young museum
photo by Madeline
Horn


Check out these dizzying virtual tours of Mexican Cultural sites I especially love the tours of the Mayan ruins. When you virtually 'visit' Palenque through Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia's site, you can enter tombs and see burials that were closed to the public when I visited the site in person.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Airstream Dreams

A blog post on The Wallflower (through the SF Chronicle) on customized Airstream trailers caught my fancy today http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/wallflower/detail?entry_id=49515

I've always had a special place in my heart for homes on wheels. As a child, my family would pack up the VW van for extended trips all over California, and sometimes all the way to Canada and Mexico. My grandparents also had a portable home, the Toyota Chinook, that looked like a shoebox on a small Toyota pickup. It worked great though, and included a sink, a stove, a toilet, and two beds! The ad above pits the two family camper vehicles against each other. Personally, I loved them both equally.

SFMOMA has a decked out trailer in the collection that I've coveted for years. http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/9696#

It's on display now; go see it before it goes back in storage!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Polaroid Back in Action!!!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6316829/Polaroid-cameras-to-be-produced-once-again.html
I was thrilled to read the above article that announces that Polaroid will continue to make film! I love my Polaroid camera and I've been guarding my last pack of film in the fridge for over 2 years now, feeling sad and wondering what subject would be worthy of using the last pack for. Now I no longer have to fret, Polaroid film will be available to purchase once again. YAY!!!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Involvement of local people to combat looting

Looted Iraqi Cultural Heritage
photo courtesy of ABC News

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/opinion/13atwood.html


This New York Times article by Roger Atwood, author of the excellent book Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers and the Looting of the Ancient World, explains the importance of involving local people to combat looting. Archaeologically rich areas, such as Peru and Iraq, are commonly impoverished. Unfortunately, poverty can lead to the exploitation of an area's cultural heritage for financial gain of residents. Education of local people and the development of responsible archaeological tourism are both excellent ways to combat looting. In Iraq, tourism cannot be developed like it has been in Peru. However, education and involvement of local people can instill pride in Iraq's heritage. Those who have pride in their cultural heritage are much less likely to loot archaeological sites.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

FoundSF - Interactive San Francisco History Site!


San Francisco Harbor 1851
photo courtesy of Sparkle Tack

I highly recommend this Wicki on San Francisco History, which readers can contribute to. Great for anyone in love with our lovely city on the bay. Visitors to the site can choose to explore by neighborhood, decade, population, or theme. Visitors can also take "tours" of the site. As the public transit nerd that I am, I especially enjoyed the "Transit History Tour."
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Explore away!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

musee du quai Branly

http://modules.quaibranly.fr/metis/metis_en.html

This site connected with an exhibit (planete metisse) at the Paris museum, musee du quai Branly explores colonization and contact between the culture of the colonized and the colonizer. The exhibit displays objects from the begining of colonization to the present day. This is a subject I think of often, especially with regards to Latin American countries where indigenous people created a hybrid religion, that is still practiced to this day, by masking their own deities in the catholic saints of Spain. This phenomenon took on a whole new level in the Caribbean where Spanish culture met with indigenous culture met with African culture that came with the slaves imported by the Spanish. Masking the deities in Catholic disguise allowed oppressed peoples to continue practicing their religions under the watchful eye of the colonizers.

Monday, June 22, 2009

LACMA

The Pompeii exhibit displays magnificent pieces from the wealthy resort cities on the Bay of Naples, which were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Objects include sculpture, frescoes, and decorative arts. Naturally, photos were not permitted inside the exhibit, so I cannot show my favorite aspect of the exhibit; the hair. The sculptures all featured luscious curly heads of hair, kind of outrageous looking by today's standards, yet so very pretty!

Here is a slideshow from LACMA's website featuring photos of the exhibition galleries: http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/pompeii2/Pompeii%20and%20the%20Roman%20Villa.html


An entire dining room of frescoes from the site of Moregine, to the south of Pompeii, is on display in the exhibit. Entering the room, I felt as if I was stepping back in time. The frescoes feature Apollo, patron of the arts, surrounded by the muses on either side.

Lamp post installation outside at LACMA. Amazing!

http://www.lacma.org/

El Conquistador

We had my birthday dinner at El Conquistador, a very festive colorful restaurant in Silverlake with great art on the walls and super friendly staff. We ate mole enchiladas and enchiladas with an avocado cream sauce. Yum.

For dessert they brought me flan with a birthday candle in it and 3 of the staff joined in singing me happy birthday. The margaritas were superb!

http://www.elconquistadorrestaurant.com/

La Brea Tarpits

Tar Puddle. Tar puddles pop up in various parts of the tar pit park. Visitors can poke a stick in the tar to feel the texture. Be careful though...my sister got tar on her leg from leaning onto the grass by the puddle and the tar wouldn't come off for 2 days!
Visitors even make tar graffitti with sticks dipped in the tar.
This sad mammoth (?) floated back and forth. He must be mounted on a barge. Fat gas bubbles come to the surface of this oily lagoon every few seconds. Slick!

Los Angeles!


Los Angeles! I visited for the first time in years, soaking up the ambiance by spending lots of the day in the car. Although...we did walk from the Los Angeles County Art Museum (LACMA) to The Farmers Market for lunch. The streets just don't feel the same there for walking. I'm accustomed to the wide sidewalks of San Francisco, whereas L.A. streets are wide, while the sidewalks are narrow. The colorful image above is an installation at LACMA.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Virtual Museum of Iraq

http://www.virtualmuseumiraq.cnr.it/



The Virtual Museum of Iraq just debuted and its fascinating. What a great way to feature museum collections. It mirrors the experience of being a casual visitor in the galleries. Unlike many online museum collections where visitors need to know what they are looking for to access the collections in a meaningful way. The zooming effect towards the objects makes me dizzy, but its worth it for all the fascinating information you get when you click on an object.



The museum has not been open regularly since 2003, when the museum was seriously looted in the midst of the Iraq war. The virtual museum gives international visitors a chance to see these amazing treasures from the cradle of civilization.