Day 2: SF Street Art

Hello Hello!

Despite it being rainy and cold, I visited the Asian art museum today. There is are definitely some beautiful things in there including the fairly standard Asian-history stuff. My favorite sections would have to be India and Japan:

^Japanese pottery.

^ Japanese Kimono worn by the crown prince.

^Jade bowl.

^Chinese painting.

My ultimate favorite thing, however, would have to be the giant floor to ceiling metal mesh screens with flowers drawn on them with a fire torch. When up close, you could see all the colors. It was really stunning:

After geeking out at the Museum I got a preview of Steve Johnston's solo show at 111 Minna Gallery called "Fight or Flight." Its really spectacular! The opening night is Thursday and anyone in San Francisco should attend.

^ Look how happy he is. If you go to the show you will be happy too.

Next, I endeavored on one of the longest walks of my life through the alleys of the Mission District in search of SF street art. I was not disappointed! I found street art galore and these were some of my favorites:

^I just really like that cat.

^Old mural of elephant, Steve claims this artist and his work have been around for a long time.

^Flame-breathing fuzzy monster?

^This one might be my favorite. It's pretty sweet.

^These Koi fish were everywhere. This artist really got around.

^This one was right next to a giant Mars1 mural.

I also got a chance to visit some local stores that had trendy, artsy clothes including Uptown Playground where I got a screen printed tee. I think I walked about 20 miles and by the time I finally got back to my hotel my feet felt like they were going to fall off. Overall, though, I couldn't be more pleased.

Coming to you live from San Francisco!

Hello! I am currently sitting in my hotel in downtown San Francisco. I managed to arrive without any major mishap and was way too excited to use the train system. I already managed to get around a huge portion of the downtown area including Union Square, China Town, Little Italy, Yerba Buena Gardens, and the shopping and financial districts. I ate some delicious Thai food at Osha Thai, got some fresh fortune cookies (yes, they were made right in front of me) , got some amazing coffee at Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe, and bought some books from the famous City Lights Books. I am walking distance from both the SF MoMA and Asian Art Museum and plan on visiting that tomorrow. I have also managed to spot some pretty cool street art. I can't wait to visit the Mission District and some of the local art galleries.

Some Street art I spotted so far:

Update:New Paintings!

I've been finally getting around to posting new work up online. My website it now up-to-date and my camera is now ready for new art. I've already got some projects lined up and San Francisco is in T-minus 11 days! My anticipation is becoming deafening.

But for now enjoy:

Updates and Business:

As the semester is winding down, stress levels and productivity are increasing for me. Being fair-skinned, or as some affectionately refer to it as "pasty," I tend to burn easily. I am also not a big fan of heat and temperatures over 80 degrees. Either way, I ended up getting both heat-stroke and badly burnt this past Sunday playing Ultimate Frisbee on the beach. I had quite an interesting reaction to these (other than being fatigued, nauseated, dizzy, and over all feverish) : my forehead turned lobster-red and became rather swolen. You can imagine the wonderful looks I got all week! Luckily the redness and swelling has subsided and today I look almost normal with the exception of the bridge of my nose (which is still swollen and makes me look like a Na'vi from Avatar). Moral of this story: wear sunblock and drink ridiculous amounts of water. All of this happened, of course, just in time for final exam week (Hurray!).

Despite the recent set-backs I finished a new painting today. I also put together a small collection of poems (will post here soon). Photos will be taken of all recent work (paintings and drawings) and will be posted soon as well.

In other news, I have started to put together a preliminary itinerary for San Francisco and have selected travel dates and hotel location (Yay!). I have also started the Holy Cow Yoga Challenge this week for the second year in a row. I am a big advocate and fan of yoga and have been practicing for almost two years now. Its really helping me relax and recenter in this time of chaos. Lastly, I have started gathering a list of projects that I will be undertaking over the summer involving a lot of art but also some performance art (poi, fire poi, aerial dance, and various other things).

So hang in there and new work will be posted soon! Namaste!

Upcoming Show!

These past couple of weeks have been rough but there are bright prospects to be had in the near future! This Saturday, April 23 I will have some art in the upcoming Khruu show. The event itself will be full of neat stuff such as a lion dance, martial arts demonstrations, a shadow puppet theater, and live music. I'm really excited!

Re:Nude Art Show

Tomorrow is the 2nd annual Re:Nude art show to support Charleston's Planned Parenthood. It is a great show for a great cause!

Success!

I received news today that I have been awarded a grant I applied for back in February. This is fantastic news because this grant will provide the funds I need to be a professional artist for a summer. With this money I will travel to San Francisco, California for a week to tour and visit museums, art schools, and galleries in the Bay area. I will then return and spend the remainder of the summer working on my own art. The grant will pay for my supplies and salary!

I am overwhelmed with happiness right now (and scaring some of the people around me)! This grant took half of my semester (a quarter was spent actually writing it, and a quarter was spent making up work I had to put off to write it). The whole thing was 12 pages long and was the first grant I had ever written.

Of course, there is still a daunting amount of work to be done and many more challenges to overcome, but for now, I am just going to bask in this rare moment of accomplishment.