Feeling a little playful and thoughtful today so here’s a little note in my own hand-writing font!

Just a Little Note

For the first of my Inspired Monday series, I am featuring an amazing local organization called 826LA, a non-profit writing and tutoring center in Echo Park, LA that I discovered during the recent Citylabs event and just finished a volunteer session with-illustrating for a storytelling field trip for 2nd graders.  What exactly is it that earns 826LA an Inspired Project showcase? Well, it hits all three requirements that I feel makes it worthy of some hero-worshipping-namely amazing creativity, passion for work, and last but not least, a genuine desire to help others.

I will start with the top of the checklist. Make no mistake, this is an extremely creative group, from the idea of the Time Travel Mart (scroll and see pictures below) and its fabulous products, to the tutoring center in the back and the way the spaces are designed and put together-definitely inspiring! From the moment you walk in, whether its through the mart at the front, or from the entrance in the back, the space itself to me feels like coming home-a great place to go if you want to conjure up stories of faraway lands and tales of monsters and superheroes! It has warm antique elements, modern design sensitivities, wall to wall bookshelves and radiates with playful wit.

The volunteers and interns that I spoke to during my storytelling illustration have a real passion and belief  for what they are doing-helping children learn to appreciate and enjoy the written word.  There is care and thought put into to every detail of a simple storytelling 2nd grade field trip-from a basket of sunglasses for posed mugshots of the visiting kids, printed photos and individual ‘approved’ booklets of the stories they all co-wrote, to a booming oz-like voice of the omnipotent Mr Barnacle the Big Boss staged to thrill and captivate the young audience.

I undoubtedly enjoyed my session there, surrounded by so much creative energy and malleable young minds!

I honestly feel that doing remarkable work with passion and a genuine desire to help others is a powerful, powerful combination. There are so many lessons that can be learned from the 826LA approach. Such an interesting combination of programs and products in a non-profit group is definitely a befitting first featurette!  Check them out ,volunteer at your next opportunity and be inspired!

just name two

Glow

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, of the people, events and things that inspire me. Not just oh I like that, but really INSPIRES me. There is too much out there to filter through in our daily lives,  so what I really want to know is, who are the SUPER inspirers, the one or two persons, place or object that moves you to creative ecstasy?

One  needn’t have traveled to far lands to find undiluted creative muse, often it can be found close to the home and heart. Someone or something so beautiful, brilliant, elegant, honest, earnest and full of passion that your heart aches with inspiration. I want to know who they are.  Will I find many in LA? Will people send me notes from abroad? Can we keep it real?

What brought this to the bobbing surface was my recent discovery of  ‘Dumbo feather, pass it on’ through the fabulous Pia Jane Bijkerk. It is an unpretentious, amazing Australian quarterly featuring five super inspirers in each issue. Pure genius journalism, cutting to the heart of things with raw, unabashed honesty and forthright optimisim Australians are known for. These are people who work passionately for their dreams, and who have come to harbor no illusions of grandeur even if they may have found it.

Sumptuous

One of my favorite pastimes these days, is to recall my childhood fancies and attempt to bring them into some form of renewed, adult fascination while pondering on how, if any, age has changed my views, thoughts and aesthetics.

Carressed

As far as I can remember, the tomboyish side of my youth that rebelled against feminine frou-frou with Daddy’s pants and polo t-shirts, oversized steel-toe boots and shorn hair disappeared completely within the confines of my girlhood bedrooms. In there, my Georgina alter-ego hung up her dirty scout uniforms and flannel shirts.  My bedroom was something that was always completely, utterly and undeniably feminine-pink bedspreads, fringed tablecloths, stuffed toys.

These days, I have reconciled with my girlish ways and while the tomboy in me still surface sometimes for internal wardrobe battles, hitting the golden age of 30 has brought upon a new flush of meaning. Now I have womanhood ahead of me to contend with. Right on cue,  I have been secretly coveting a boudoir since discovering it’s spatial meaning beyond corset fetishes and midnight rendezvouses. Defined as a room or space within the home that offers a comfortable and unabashedly feminine respite, it glorifies and celebrates womanhood and all of its pleasurable rituals.

The lovely pictures I have attached above are from The Paris Apartment and really best exemplifies what I believe to be the adult incarnation of the girlhood bedrooms of my past. I am most inspired by the notion of the boudoir as a heightened den of pleasurable textures-lace, silk, fur, satin, brocade and the refinement of craft-both in objects and in furniture.

While Parisian aesthetics can at times appear too ornate for my liking, it is the richness and bold embrace of materials, textures and unrestrained delight for beauty that rings most loudly for me.  These set of spatial virtues probably explains why there are so many versions of the woman’s boudoir in so many different cultures,  all raw, beautiful, romantic and deeply personal.

]]> http://www.treespacestudio.com/blog/2010/01/13/boudoir-for-a-girlhood-passed/feed/ 0 http://www.treespacestudio.com/blog/2009/09/30/framing-an-exercise/ http://www.treespacestudio.com/blog/2009/09/30/framing-an-exercise/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:18:53 +0000 thetreespacestudio http://www.treespacestudio.com/blog/?p=380 I recently finished a framed series based on a contact-sheet style storytelling format I’ve been wanting to experiment with. The subject is a bunch of shots I took of hun while we were waiting for the bus to town some few weeks back. The sun was setting as we sat there so you could see [...]]]>

I recently finished a framed series based on a contact-sheet style storytelling format I’ve been wanting to experiment with. The subject is a bunch of shots I took of hun while we were waiting for the bus to town some few weeks back. The sun was setting as we sat there so you could see a faint pink hue. Doesn’t he look positively ten years old here?

Popeye Henry

Waiting For the Bus

It’s fairly obvious there is a difference in message between the two and I have titled it appropriately. With the white frames, the shots stand out as individual frames, with the black frames, it reads like an old movie strip. It becomes a story. Since I was really trying to show a series of photographs caricaturing my husband, the first one is closer to my vision. If it was more action-oriented, I would have went with the second. What do you think?

Sunlight

I am beginning to record some ideas for photographic essays I am planning to embark on:

1. Wabi-Sabi

“Wabi-sabi is about the minor and the hidden, the tentative and the ephemeral; things so subtle and evanescent they are invisible to vulgar eyes” -Leonard Koren

“Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace” -Leonard Koren

2. Los Angeles: Strangely Familiar

Living in Los Angeles calls in to being, memories of all the places near and dear to my heart. My memories of Penang Island, of living in Perth, Australia, growing up in a hodge-podge mix of modernism, eclecticism and pop culture. I have strange deja-vu experiences of parts of Los Angeles  that echo places I’ve lived before and would like to capture it before the newness fades and a kind of blind familiarity sets in.

3. Californication

A photo-essay about all that is weird, wonderful and unique about Southern California and living in Los Angeles. A story about donut shops, 5-lane roads, immaculately manicured lawns, strange characters and dreams.

4. A series of framed contact-sheet type shots of Popeye Henry

5. A photo-essay of my plated creations