Friday, November 27, 2015

Friday, November 27, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken the day after Thanksgiving in November of 2008. Mattie and Peter had a Black Friday tradition with one another. It did not involve shopping! Instead they took out all our outdoor Christmas lights and would work on creating a magnificent display in our commons area. Each year, Mattie and Peter would purchase a new light for the display, thereby expanding the display every year. In 2008, they bought this Scooby Doo outdoor light to add to their creation! Mattie loved Scooby Doo and while undergoing treatment we watched every episode and movie possible. So that new light addition that year seemed appropriate. When Mattie died, so did our lighting of our commons area. People used to LOVE IT! In fact I still have neighbors telling me how much joy our displays gave to their holidays! 


Quote of the day: The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

We went to the Los Angeles County Museum today to see an exhibit entitled, Frank Gehry. A tribute to the Canadian born architect who is now 86 years old. 

Outside the museum, Peter posed inside "Urban Light," a large-scale assemblage sculpture by Chris Burden. The installation consists of 202 restored street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s.

Here is some information below about Frank Gehry. I have to admit I knew he was a famous architect, but am not familiar with most of his works! Being a traditionalist, I can now understand why!

Frank Gehry has revolutionized architecture’s aesthetics, social and cultural role, and relationship to the city. His pioneering work in digital technologies set in motion the practices adopted by the construction industry today. The Canadian-born, Los Angeles–based architect’s work interrogates a building’s means of expression, a process that has brought with it new methods of design and technology as well as an innovative approach to materials. Gehry's innovation and ability to push the boundaries of architecture garnered him the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989.

Frank Gehry presents a comprehensive examination of his extraordinary body of work from the early 1960s—he established his firm in Los Angeles in 1962—to the present, featuring over 200 drawings, many of which have never been seen publicly, and 65 models that illuminate the evolution of Gehry’s thinking. Tracing the arc of his career, the exhibition focuses on two main themes: urbanism and the development of new systems of digital design and fabrication, including his use of CATIA, a software tool used in the aeronautics and automobile industries, which allows the digital manipulation of 3-D representations. This retrospective offers an opportunity to reflect on the development of Gehry’s work and to understand the processes of one of the great architectural minds.

As we entered the exhibit, this is what we were first hit with. A sculpture entitled, "Vulcanized Paper." It is massive and eye catching, and I will leave it at that. 

Within the exhibit is one of Gehry's famous quotes: "I had a funny notion that you could make architecture that you would bump into before you would realize it was architecture." To me this says it all, and he captures his own artistic style quite well. To me there is something askew, visually unpleasing, and almost leaves you UPSET after looking at them. After being in this exhibit, I literally left with a terrible headache and with a terrible allergy. I am not sure if it was dust from the models, all the wood platforms they are displayed on, or what. But it was a noticeable unhealthy feeling from being in that space. 

Here is one of Gehry's models! It is a model of the Brain Health Center at Cleveland Clinic. I hate to admit it, but as soon as I read what this was a model of, I broke out in laughter! To me it seems like a disorganized mind put this together, and the fact that it represents a building where one is seeking brain health seems dissonant/contradictory 
to me! 

This white number (which is really shiny silver in real life) is the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. 

What the concert hall looks like in real life! Geometric shapes comprised of tin foil!

There was a room filled with Gehry's models. What is captivating though in this display is the photo of the model factory on the wall. Each table in the factory is dedicated to the design of one of Gehry's creations. Clearly just designing the models alone is a major business. 

This is the Louis Vuitton 
Headquarters in Paris. I tried to be open minded about what I was seeing, but Gehry's work doesn't do anything for my mind, heart, or spirit!