Viva la Mexico! the 26 hour visit.

It seemed ridiculous to be making pinatas and not have visited Mexico (especially because the Pinata District turned out to be such an unfriendly bust!), and since Mike was staying in San Diego, we decided to hop over for my last day below the 45th parallel. 

Thanks to the internet (a very big thank you here) we were turned on to the Mercado Hildalgo, which is an excellent market complex.  We may have been the only white folks there; we were friendly greeted, though Mike and Michelle are certain I got screwed out of two dollars when I bought cocoanut. 

I took the next picture for Sarah:

And then there were the exceptionally awesome pinatas.  They were everywhere!

Happy girl.

Then we went to the rest of Tijuana, where hand-painted signs abounded. 

And this could pass for a house.

And apparently you could easily get your hands on viagra

We didn't stay long.  We headed south, down to La Fonda.  Yes, Jesus' head lights up night. 

In paradise with a $3 margarita. A very tasty margarita. They went downhill from there. 

Back in Rosarito, found this guy,

and this paper mache mystery. 

&, yeah, this is the palm tree in the pool at the hotel we could afford to stay in.  The hotel we couldn't afford had a ferris wheel, I kid you not. 

The next day we drove to Tecate, had tacos and waited in line at the border for almost 4 hours to have our car searched. And I still made my flight, even more excited to work with cardboard and tissue, dreaming of palmtrees...

Shark Kite.

nuff said

Heading indirectly south

Apparently, the real Bottle House is Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley.  However, it isn't open to the public. 

But there is another lovely homage to the Virgin made from Bottles on Lemoyne in Echo Park area, which I like to visit frequently.  This particular time was on a road trip with some of the guys who work on this site: http://weburbanist.com/ 

We also visited Watt's Towers.  I was tickled by the mini-towers in the park behind it. 

3 white kids driving up to the towers on a Wednesday afternoon in a Subaru kinda stuck out like sore thumbs.  But we were welcomed by some friendly older ladies and a couple of really skinny cats.  Visiting places like this makes me feel a real, genuine love for the world. I'm truly grateful to get to venture forth so frequently. 

Venice and Andy Byers

I went to Venice to visit my current mentor and look what I found!

Meeting also went fantastically.  My mentor, Mr. Andy Byers, is super intimidating and wonderfully warm and friendly.  Yes, I stole this image right off his new website, which folks should all check out: http://andybyersart.com/

After spending weeks by myself (along with David Attenborough) tiling, it was a difficult for me to feel like I was even close to being coherent in introductory dialog.  But Andy was very encouraging, especially about remembering to actually care about what I'm working on (oh yeah, I had forgotten that I actually like to make art!).  Seeing his work made me practically twitch to go home and make new things. Unfortunately hasn't started yet, but soon.  Soon as this blog finishes getting updated, in fact. 

L.A. Day

I made the logical pilgrimage to the Pinata district on a blustery February day. I, for some odd reason, thought I should walk there from my friend Dan's place up in Silverlake, so it was a bit of a treck to what turned out not to be a great photo opportunity because shop owners would shake their heads as soon as they saw my camera, but here are a few surreptitious shots anyway.

pretty smacking devices.

OoH! Orca! Kinda like a Shark!

After that I ventured back into the Fashion District, where for some reason I had never been before. Truly overwhelming, how every notion I've every longed for could have its own store!  Button Store!  Ribbon Store!  Artificial Fingernails by the pound! Rhinestone design Store! 

And there were all these bolts of fur out on the corners, blowing in the wind.

So lovely. But, once again, people objected to me taking footage of their product without buying it. 

So I walked to the toy district.

And then, very slowly, walked up the hill home. I was completely exhausted from research. 

Possible Thesis Images

This is a collect the dots email.  You find connections between all these things and you get a prize! You get to write my paper!