Santa Monica Beach

Guys, I'm super lucky. I live about a dozen blocks from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Honestly, it's so close I could go there every day (read: I should go there every day). The boyfriend and I had a good-old-fashioned sleep-in and after I read four chapters of Sense and Sensibility (with a British accent in my head, of course), I proclaimed: "It's a perfect day, let's walk to the beach!"

We walked down Montana Avenue, which is kind of like a smaller version of State Street (the main street in Santa Barbara). It's got tons of restaurants (mostly Italian), cafes (mostly Italian), dry cleaners (can't figure that one out--there's seriously like 14 dry cleaners) and wellness centers (think: yoga studios, massage places, acupuncturists, etc). There's definitely a bougie-vibe to the whole place, but it's not the worst thing. I actually kind of like it. It's a twinkly-light, tree-lined street leading straight down to Ocean Ave. Kinda pleasant. We grabbed coffee and sandwiches to take with us, because once you get down to the beachfront, your dining options are pretty limited and full of "you're paying for the location, bitches" price tags.

It's about a 40 minute walk from my apartment on 14th street down to the actual beach. As frequent visitors and locals know, Santa Monica is perched atop a pretty large cliff and getting to the beach requires going down some fairly steep stairs, crossing over a pedestrian bridge above PCH and walking across a very long stretch of beach to get to the water. It was a Sunday, so the beach was filled with families, roller skaters, skateboarders, surfers and volley ball players. It's a very long, expansive beach so even with the perfect weather Sunday ingredients, the result was a beach that doesn't feel all too crowded. The boyfriend and I jumped in the ocean and to our delight it was the warmest water I've been in since I was in Hawaii over seven years ago. We laid in the sun for a couple hours, talking about this and that, reveling in how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place and making tentative plans to do this more often.

If you're going down to the Santa Monica beach and you need to drive, I would recommend parking in the residential neighborhoods of the Palisades and walking a couple of blocks to get down to Palisades Park (the grass park on the cliff above the many sets of stairs down to the ocean). Or, you can always find parking in any of the parking garages surrounding the Promenade. The rates aren't terrible, you can usually get away for under $5 if you stay for two-three hours.

After we'd lounged for a good time, we walked over to the pier, thinking that we might stop for a beer at Big Dean's, but the crowd there was a little too intense so we decided to start walking back home. On our way back we stopped in one of the many Whole Foods on Wilshire and browsed the beer section. We chose two new beers and were really happy with both of them. My favorite was the Sofie farmhouse ale that was light and refreshing, and even a little sweet. And yes, we drink beer out of wine glasses.

Even though we got second degree burns on our legs and backsides, the sweet beach day was totally worth it. Next time we go: SPF ANYTHING.

19 Signs You're Doing Okay

1. You are alive.
2. You are able to see the sunrise and the sunset.
3. You are able to hear birds sing and waves crash.
4. You can walk outside and feel the breeze through your hair and the sun’s warmth on your skin.
5. You have tasted the sweetness of chocolate cake.
6. You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night.
7. You awoke this morning with a roof over your head.
8. You had a choice of what clothes to wear.
9. You haven’t feared for your life today.
10. You have overcome some considerable obstacles, and you have learned and survived.
11. You often worry about what you’re going to do with your life – your career, your family, the next step, etc. – which means you have ambition, passion, drive, and the freedom to make your own decisions.
12. You live in a country that protects your basic human rights and civil liberties.
13. You are reasonably strong and healthy – if you got sick today, you could recover.
14. You have a friend or relative who misses you and looks forward to your next visit.
15. You have someone with whom to reminisce about ‘the good old days.’
16. You have access to clean drinking water.
17. You have access to medical care.
18. You have access to the Internet.
19. You can read.

The truth is, you’re doing better than a lot of people in this world.  So remember to be grateful for all the things you do have. (Reblogged: from here)

Contemporary Still Lifes on Artsy

Here's another post I made for Artsy about contemporary still lifes. It's brief and superficial, but, hey, it's something!

Still life painting is perhaps the most calculated of all genres. The artist first chooses the scene, and in most cases, arranges the image to their liking. Sixteenth and seventeenth century still lifes focused on portraying important themes of the day such as vanitas, which is, very loosely translated, a meditation on death, such as a skull, religious devoutness, such as a loaf of bread and a glass of wine, and regal status, for example, a sumptuously displayed table. At this time, artists were concerned with representing real life in a precise and natural manner through subjects that would convey specific themes to their viewers. Toward the middle of the 19th century, modernists (i.e. impressionist and post-impressionist artists) began to break away from the realism and naturalism of the past. No longer concerned with classicism and traditionalism, these artists broke from the Academie and introuduced bold color, sweeping gestures, unique perspective, and tangible emotion to their works (think of Van Gogh’s seminal sunflowers). Rejecting the conventions of the traditional still life which focused on the subject and symbolism, expression and process became increasingly the focus of the contemporary still life.  With the advent of Pop art, contemporary artists like Wayne Thiebaud, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, combined traditional still life representation with the bold colors and spatial concerns of the modern era. David Hockney similarly utilizes a combination of classic rendering with expressive color and unique perspective.

Posts on Artsy

Artsy recently set me up as a featured contributor on their site. I know, I know, it sounds cool, but nothing's really happened with it yet. I'd love to get some followers and write a lot of important posts, but so far I've only written two short articles and I'm not sure what the point of it is. I do enjoy it. Maybe that's the point. 

Here's a link to my recent micro-article about Picasso erotica. I'll go out on a limb and say it's NSFW, but it's Picasso, so it's art, so it's okay? (I'd like to discuss this idea [that erotica in art is acceptable and other forms of erotic are not] at some point in the future as I think it's salient and crucial to the larger art historical conversation).

Bon chance,

Diana

If you can't manage to get onto Artsy, here's the text from the post:

These prints are among the last etchings that Picasso executed before his death in 1973.  Over seven months in 1968, Picasso worked on the 347 Series, a narrative collection of 347 etchings (to provide context, Rembrandt created 300 prints over his entire lifetime).  Loosely drawn, perspectives thrown, bodies contorted and grossly exaggerated, Picasso combined his cubist angles with soft naturalistic forms reminiscent of his Rose period to illustrate the narratives of musketeers, bullfighters, bordellos, and erotic and voyeuristic scenes. Picasso believed that "art can only be erotic;" sexual overtones dominate much of his oeuvre, especially in these later works. Whether he depicts a sexual encounter as a solitary act or as a pair of lovers passionately entwined or even prostitutes partaking in a full blown orgy, Picasso adeptly strips away the veil of propriety and provides us with a raw and honest portrayal of our most basic human instinct-to please and be pleased through sexual means. 

These specific images are examples of proofs pulled before steel facing of the etching plate, printed long before their respective editions were pulled, with more contrast and bolder lines than the regular editions. These proofs were kept by Picasso for his personal collection in the course of creating the 60, 156 and 347 Series. Steel facing is a modern technique whereby the soft copper plate into which the image is etched receives a thin coat of steel via electroplating in order to harden its surface. In this way an edition can be printed from beginning to end without degradation of image quality, unlike Rembrandt etchings, for example, whose bare copper plates wore down from the pressure of the press over the course of printing an edition. This resulted in a visible softening of lines, as well as a diminishing of subtle contrasts and tonal depth in examples from late in a print run. Although steel facing allows for consistent quality throughout an edition and is in this respect an improvement over a bare copper plate, the process necessarily reduces textural delicacy and tonal depth to some degree. Therefore, proofs before steel facing are the ultimate vehicles for displaying the authentic origination of the full expressive capacity of the etching process

Moving Day

Guys! I just moved into the city today!

My new apartment is in Noe Valley and I absolutely love it.

Isn't it a cute neighborhood? My roommates told me its nickname is "strolley valley" and I believe it. I walked to whole foods tonight and passed about 10 strollers on my two block trek.

More updates to come, maybe even some pictures of my new room.

A Website You Should Know About

 via I Love Doodle

via Patrick Morgan

 via Good Design Makes Me Happy

Designspiration.

Sometimes I get trapped in this website for hours. It's very similar to pinterest. Once you start, it is very difficult to shut the laptop and go to sleep.

Designspiration is a resource for finding all images related to design. You browse through other users' saves and collections and publish them to your own collection (similar to "pinning"). You can search freely or you can follow specific users whose collections you are particularly drawn to.

The basic trends within this website are: Architecture, Art, Book, Business Cards, Fashion, Illustration, Layout, Logo, Packaging, Poster, Print, Typography.

I found this website a few months back and I revisited it today and found that they have created the "collection" feature to organize your saves into a more user friendly fashion.

I am currently taking a web design course so everytime I visit a website these days I tend to analyze it and critique it. Overall I love this site however, I think what may make it more effective is if they had a larger limit to the number of images on a page. I love pinterest because of its infinity of pins. You NEVER have to click "next page" in order to get to more pins...you just keep scrolling. Designspiration could take note of this.

You do have to request an invite, but I encourage you to request and join! It's so inspiring!

Beauty Trend: Ombre

 So I am getting my hair done tomorrow at Mercer Street Salon, a swanky salon in the Marina. I'm getting Balayage instead of my regular blonde highlights. I'm excited to see how it turns out; I am paying a pretty penny to get it done, so I hope I am very happy with it! It's been a huge trend lately, and I especially love the subtlety of Elizabeth Olson's hair above. I will post pictures tomorrow :)