pasadena, echo park & silverlake day trip

a few of us from the fiber department decided to venture to pasadena to visit our friend emilyn to see her studio, an industrial rope supplier (yes, i have become a bit of a fiber nerd), the norton simon museum and whatever else crossed our path this past friday. we started out at frank r ferris co and he generously let us look around for what must have been an hour: me in my heels in the attic surrounded by boxes of rope of all varieties, some twine with a vintage tag, a view of of one of many rooms of rope, some incredible ironing boards that i was given (for free!!) leftover from a repair business that the owners father ran in the same space in the 1960's, next we headed to emilyn's studio were she is working on her mfa application to fibers for next fall..this is a quick shot of one wall of her studio, finally we did a drive through of echo park and silverlake, stopping for an amazing lunch at Forage (ate too fast to get pictures) then window shopping at the silverlake shops, ending up having tea and snacks at the Casbah Cafe (be aware the outdoor tables are at an extreme angle so you might want to bring your own something something to prop them up evenly enough to eat on) before heading to the Norton Simon Museum for their Pacific Standard Time show of LA printmaking. 

good times, good food, another fun neighborhood i never knew existed. Thanks Emilyn and Krista!

hard at work

its been a long while since we have posted any images of our studios or artwork. i guess you can tell that we've been busy when we haven't been regularly updating our blog. so. we are going to do better. heres a taste of how the fall 2011 semester is starting to take shape: joes been painting abstractly as of late..heres some works in progress. tina moved into a larger studio space over the summer and by now is right at home making work, heres a glimpse of what that looks like (if you want more specifics on tina's work you can visit her own art blog at www.tinalinville.blogspot.com)

curried chicken with ginger and yogurt

dear crock-pot, 

thank you for cooking our dinner while we were busy at school. what an incredible meal to come home to this week! you're the best.

love, 

joe + tina

split second split (bergamot station version)

The first of a 2 part Claremont 2nd year MFA Exhibition "split second split" opened at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica last weekend and while these are not our best pictures, its better than the zero pictures we took at the GLAMFA open studios the weekend before: Tina looking at work by Kelsea Heino, Can you find Joe's painting in this picture?, Champagne fountain courtesy of girlpuke, new work by Atilio Pernisco who Joe is working out a trade with for a painting that is currently hanging in our hallway...

savannah, georgia

welcome to the last blogpost on my summer southern vacation: savannah, georgia. We spent two full days exploring this old (founded in 1733!) beautiful city's historic district, constructed around 21 squares of landscaped green spaces, punctuated with historical statues and monuments. The city is very proud of its famous savannahian Juliette Gordon Low the founder of the Girls Scouts and its prominent role in the book and subsequent movie "midnight in the garden of good and evil" staring kevin spacey.

images from top: going through my pictures to put together this post i found many of them are of the front windows of old buildings like these first two which have a dignity to their shabbiness and a charm that makes me wish i would have gone to the art school here instead of playing it safe going to the University of Washington and, like Charleston, Savannah has the best trees which are everywhere lining the streets of the historic downtown squares, i can't say enough good things about the Foley House Inn where we stayed..this is the courtyard outside my room, hammersmith farm #207, this statue was hidden in the corner of my hotel room and i have to say i could do a whole post of the hotel room art and textiles but i'm thinking that many of you might not be as interested in that kind of stuff as joe and i are so i have restrained myself, Savannah is the 2nd most haunted city in the US so we took a midnight ghost tour in the back of a Hearse (the most haunted city in the US is Charleston, SC ), my very favorite thing about Savannah was the graveyards and here's me, sad face and all, in one of them, detail shot of an old grave, Mom and Jim resting on a bench in Forsyth Park, Bonaventure Cemetery, image of the back wall of Colonial Park Cemetery lined with gravestones where people were buried from 1750-1853. This graveyard became a campground for Sherman's soldiers during the civil war.

charleston, south carolina

a few highlights from my trip this summer to Charleston, South Carolina: marshy landscape, i didn't see any alligators during my trip but this is where the supposed alligators live, me in the rice mill building at the middleton place plantation, south carolina has the best trees like this one called angel oak, mom waiting for her tea at the hopsewee plantation, resurrection ferns, lovely carriage ride in downtown charleston, tour of Georgetown historic district, one of the grander homes of historic downtown charleston, jim in his southern gentleman hat looking out towards fort sumter, lush gardens of middleton place plantation, textiles from the civil war exhibit at the charleston museum

sunday afternoon at moca

2 images of sculpture made out of airplane parts by nancy rubins outside of museum of contemporary art in downtown los angeles, blurry tina with blurry rothkos, lifted this image off the web similar to what we saw in the lynda benglis show which we were not allowed to photograph, frank gehry building across the street from the museum