Oh goodie, let me swing by Pink’s!
I went to the Century City Mall in hopes of finding something to wear to an event in two days where the recommended dress code is “Cocktail Party”. Can you imagine I have anything in the least suitable to meet the criteria? NO is the only answer! So I got a skirt with my fingers crossed and then I was going to see Ben and Bonnie who live nearby.
And what is also nearby? Pink’s!
Lilly and Sierra. We went out for our favorite, Yogurtland!
I’ve been back for 8 days which should put me well adjusted to my 9 hour time change LA-Spain-LA and I did sleep well last night. I’m pretty much on a normal schedule of Book Group Zoom, Monday in the Valley, monthly lunch with the gang, hangin’ with the kids, meals with friends, checking in with my sisters, tenant ‘situations’, etc etc.
It took me up until yesterday to catch up with my trip pictures and the LACMA visit. So now I’m home sweet home, all caught up, ready to move on!
My phone can only take moon pictures when the sky is blue. Once it gets dark out the moon becomes a glowing ball, without detail or interest.
Jim and Rick stopped by after the nearby CycLAvia. Thanks guys!
They’re having member visits for a few weeks before opening to the public on May 4, 2026.
Just outside the elevator doors.
Above we’ve got Standing Warrior, a slip-painted earthenware figure from the Jalisco culture of ancient West Mexico, dated between 200 BCE and 400 CE.
And almost around the corner is this guy below, Vikatonarva (2024), a monumental 12-foot-tall terracotta work by the Indian contemporary artist Manjunath Kamath. I like that they’re pals here.
There we are, Susie, me, Cynthia. too bad I didn’t find a better reflecting surface especially considering all the reflections from the glass.
Entertainment! The violin wasn’t playing a song, more like free-form sound, and we had soccer players and then a bicyclist rolled in.
Oh goodie, Levitated Mass. And down there you can see the Weiwei Chinese zodiac. You’ve probably noticed by now that the entire cladding of the museum is windows and all the views are worth a look.
Above are some of the tags available identifying the work. Every tag I saw was ‘A gift of..’ or ‘Purchased with funds provided by..’. Pieces that the museum bought for itself don’t seem to be identified.
There were a very few explanatory panels and that was it. You could use QR Codes to find information but basically it is in the intention of the museum and the curators that you get lost, wander to the next space, find yourself wondering what the heck you’re looking at. The organization, the juxtapositions, they’re all designed to intrigue. I actually liked it but in that I might be in the minority.
Below, the four pictures straight ahead all have tags and were all gifts.
Another view from another wing of Levitated Mass.
A LACMA commission, Jagyeong Hall, Gyeongbok Palace by artist Do Ho Suh. “The installation is a life-size, translucent fabric recreation of a section of the Cheongyeonru pavilion from Seoul’s Gyeongbok Palace.”
Notice how great the tapestry looks on the burgundy wall.
You can’t see this picture so well and neither could I until I was nose to nose. I really like this, it pulled me straight in to its story. It had a tag too: Louis-Jean Desprez, France, 1743-1804, active Sweden The Funeral Procession of Agamemnon 1787. Pen and ink, watercolor, and gray and brown washes heightened with gouache on paper. Purchased with funds provided by the Joseph B. Gould Foundation. (We get a tag because it was ‘Purchased with funds..’.)
What a joy, our Calder is back! It was commissioned for the opening of LACMA in 1964 and delightfully called “Three Quintains (Hello Girls)”. The Café is going there by the fountain, looks like some tables are out already, so that should be lovely. The wonderful Pavilion for Japanese Art is reflected in the windows.
The 2000 Jeff Koons piece called Split-Rocker will dominate it’s place on the south side of Wilshire.
Tlalli is a 2026 sculpture of an Indigenous woman by Mexican contemporary artist Pedro Reyes.
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Cynthia took this picture to illustrate how the reflections are so dang annoying, and they are my only real complaint.
We saw probably less than half of the objects available to look at and I need to go back to solidify my feelings of the experience in general but as of this moment, I love it, reflections and all.
A new kind of Easter Egg Hunt, and a new kind of Easter Bunny.
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Happy Birthday Darryl!
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And my favorite Easter meme.
After lunch we went to check out Still Life Studio so Rome could buy supplies for their pottery class at SMC. Still Life Studio is an admirable place indeed. It’s Huge with 25+ wheels, 14 hand-building tables, firing, glazing, and 24/7 access.
The space is 6,000 square feet so what you see below is just a corner.
He comes to rake the garden once a week and he told us about what the patterns mean. I learned something, so I asked AI for more, and I’ve copied the whole rap at the end of the pictures.
It’s a small garden, you can walk all around the pond in 10 minutes. We meandered in one direction and the again in the opposite direction making for a pleasant easy-going stroll.
And then we went out for lunch. What a fine, welcome word, lunch.
In a Japanese dry landscape garden (karesansui), the raking patterns—known as samon—are not static; they are traditionally changed to reflect the shifting seasons and the natural flow of water they represent.
Seasonal Meanings and Patterns
While practitioners have individual latitude, traditional shifts include: