Gallery - Figures & Grounds

Now that I'm back to Southern California, I get to go to Galleries with Gary! It's nice because he's usually up to date on shows and actually would persuade me get my lazy butt off the computer table luring me with yummy food etc. This weekend, we went to "Figures and Ground" show at Nucleus. There were a lot of artist that were displaying their works: Kevin Chen ,Andrew Robinson, Chi-Kit Kwong, John Watkiss, Edwin Ushiro, Mari Inukai, Christian Rex van Minnen, Sean Cheetham, Patrick Leger, and Charles Hu. Mmm.. I ended up buying a print by Kozyndan. It's the Bunny wave one.

Gallery - Fresh Faces

Project Gallery in LA is having a show called “Fresh Faces” showcasing four different artists: Nimit Malavia, Yuta Onoda, Dominique Fung, and Martha Chan. I especially liked the work by Yuta Onoda because they have a nice feel to them that kind of reminds me of James Jean. Nimit Malavia arts also have really nice lineworks. Gary’s friend (James) ran into his Tokyopop CoWorker (Asuka). I thought she looked familiar and later found out that she’s a member from the artist group Ta-su. What a small world! We used to meet at different conventions. Ta-su had awesome shirts! Gary used to work with James when he was working at Tokyopop. James works with Asuka. I did some works for Tokyopo, but I knew Asuka from Conventions, and then Yuta Onoda was like “hey, you’re Asuka? I know you!” It was so funny. Asuka also came with a friend that was so cute. I forgot her name, but she was running around with her bright orange camera taking pictures of random things on the street lol.



And Sweet Gary got me Belated birthday presents.. Awww. Gary always pick the cutest gifts. If I have about 30 Gary-s around, then my room will be full of the cutest things! (I love my owl. It's solar powered, so the head shakes back and forth as if he's saying "no no no" all day lol. It's by the window entertaining my cat at the moment.)

Gallery - Syndrome

Gary called and asked me to join him for dinner and a few art shows. We picked up his friend, James, on the way there. The first art show we went to was “Syndrome: I learned by watching you.” at the Crewest Gallery. The art style was busy and wacky kind of like something from FLCL.

Bookbinding

I wanted to learn more about bookbinding, so I decided to take a Book Binding Class at San Francisco Center for the books. It was hard! I don’t even know what box knots, kettle knots and all those knots are. It seemed like everyone had done a lot of bookbindings before, but me >_<. After Cutting, Poking, Stitching, Pressing, Hammering, and Pasting, I made a nifty rounded back book. Now I'm ready to make tons of sketchbooks! >=D

Peanuts Gallery

The carnivorous plant place happened to be close Charles M. Schulz Gallery. It’s a whimsical little museum that reminds me of the Ghibli museum in Japan. Too bad, they only allowed photos at the entrance. Inside, there were a bunch of comic strips. I think there is a special Schroeder/Lucy/Beethoven Gallery, and I had a lot of fun reading through them. You can see his work space, a lot of vintage Peanuts stuff, and even a wall mural that he drew for his kid. I love the "Vote for Peanuts" artworks. They are so funny. Inside the museum, there was a little lounge area where you can sit and read letters that were sent to Mr. Schulz. I was flipping through the folder of letters that came from the white house, movie stars, other cartoonists, and fans from all over the world. Some of those letters were really touching. I read one about a guy that said he wrote him a letter when he was 12 years old, and Mr. Schulz actually replied and sent him a copy of a book. He was so touched. Now that he’s older, his son wants a dog, and they are getting a Beagle just like Snoopy hehe. Charles Schulz must have been a lovely man that is very down to earth and had a wonderful sense of humor. I’m glad I got to visit this museum. It’s amazing how he actually could write “Peanuts” for 50 years! I would have run out of ideas by the 3rd year lol.

Carnivorous Plants

James has a thing for carnivorous plant, so he asked me to join him on a trip to “California Carnivores”. It ‘s kind of in the middle of nowhere, so he had a hard time finding someone to go with him (poor James). Actually, I have always been interested in drawing these, but the only carnivorous plant that I know is the Venus flytrap haha~ . I didn’t know that there are so many kinds of carnivorous plants. After the trip, I still don’t know the names of the other plants *lol*. Eventhough it’s REALLY far out in the middle of nowhere *cough James cough*, I had a great time. It’s actually weird to think that they eat bugs. The pitcher plants looked so creepy, but so cool at the same time. In the end, I still like the venus flytrap the most. It’s probably because they look like they have tons of little fangs. Besides, they’re actually kind of cute because they are quite small. A giant venus flytrap, on the other hand, would be really scary. I really missed FSc while I was there. I’m sure she’d have love them.