NEW AMERICAN | I DON'T KNOW AND YOU CAN TOO

album cover designed by @oogum_vision

Almost two years ago Alex and I were seniors in high school and were just beginning to discover our love for art and music through a local art gallery. That gallery happened to host an album release party for a band called New American.  I don't remember much of that night except that their performance blew us away and that Alex and I were super excited to post about it on this blog. I'd forgotten that I'd actually written about them until recently when one of the band members of New American told me they read it. I don't recommend that you go that far back *nervous laughter* because what I wrote was embarrassing  not very good.

Anyway, New American has since come out with their second album, 'I Don't Know And You Can Too' and held an album release show at the Long Beach Art Exchange! There was art, two other bands playing (Thy Squid & Mother Rose ) and an abundance of good vibes. I'm no music critic but I'm still going to go ahead and tell you that New American released a hell of a good album. You know what's better than their new album? Listening to it live. I said it before in my old post and I'm gonna say it again; New American knows how to give a really good live show. There's something about this band that really moves the crowd. I mean, I stood next to a girl that knew every single word to one of their songs. I think that's a big deal for a local band! Not every band, including the 'popular'' ones, know how to give a top-notch live performance so it's definitely something to take pride in. All in all it was a fun show. Even the friends I took with me (that'd never listened to any of New American's songs) left the show as big fans.

You can find New American on Facebook, give them a listen on Spotify or purchase their new album here! And keep a look out for future tour dates to get to witness their great live performance.

More soon,

Carolina

Listen for yourself!

WAS IT EVEN A FILM FESTIVAL?

Last year I attended my very first KickStarter Film Festival as part of an extra credit assignment for my art class. For those of you who don't know what the KickStarter Film Festival is I'll explain. It's basically a screening of short films successfully funded by KickStarter. It's the coolest thing ever because we get to watch the insanely good projects and ideas people brought to life!

Last year this festival was held right in front of the LA Zoo in a large grassy field. There was a large screen where the movies were projected onto, a bunch of food trucks that were funded by KickStarter were lined up providing us with yummy food and overall a huge turn out. I absolutely loved it which is why I wanted to attend again this year.

This year it was a very different set up. It was held at Los Feliz 3, an old theater in the neighborhood of Los Feliz. That neighborhood is one of my favorites in LA because of all the old buildings and because it has Griffith Park so I was excited to go but I honestly expected it to be complete chaos because I didn't think they could fit over a thousand people in that theater. It's okay though because a thousand people didn't even show up. Maybe 20 people showed up. That's right. It was a very underwhelming turn out. I was truly surprised because I thought I was going to have to push my way through a crowd but there wasn't even a line to get in.

As surprising as the event turn out was I was happy to attend because the featured films looked very interesting! The first was Afronauts which is about the Zambia Space Academy hoping to beat America to the moon. It was a very odd story that was simply visually stunning. The second was What We Do In The Shadows  which follows three vampires trying to survive the modern world. You must see this one! It was filmed as a documentary and it's quite frankly hilarious, I truly enjoyed watching it. There was a total of 5 short films/films being featured which was also a little odd since last year they had a lot more than that. I didn't get to stay to watch the other 3 features but if you'd like to check them out you could do so here.

Afterwards I explored a Skylight Books a bookstore (who knew those still existed, right?) that was right next door to the theater and ended up purchasing two postcards for my collection. I'm very excited about those because they have a hand drawn map of LA and the other of Hollywood. Okay, I'm done over sharing about my weird collection.

More soon,

Carolina

p.s. watch the trailer I swear it's funny

THE SKELETON GIRL

I went out on a 102 degrees Friday afternoon wearing black, leather and a face covered in paint. Believe it or not this doesn't even make it on the list of 'worst planning' we've ever done. I'm telling you though we are definitely feeling the Halloween vibes this year.
This is a Skeleton make up look done by Alex. For Halloween this is probably what I'll be dressing up as since it's fun and doesn't require spending a lot of money which is what we are big about on Halloween. Halloween costumes are overpriced, poorly made pieces of clothing and Alex has taught me that I don't have to spend $100+ to dress up! In total maybe $20 were spent on this look. We needed the white and black face paint and I plan on adding some fishnets and black roses (instead of white) to complete the look! I already owned the black clothing so it was an easy and cheap look!

You can do this too! Don't let money prevent you from having fun on this one night! It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I started dressing up with Alex that I realized how fun it is. It's all about getting creative with things that you already own. You can recreate this look with any black clothing you have, some flowers from the dollar store and makeup from your local Target! I hope this sparks a little inspiration.

More coming soon,

Carolina

GRAVEYARD CHIC

Hi everyone!

Life has been especially difficult lately but I'm not here to complain. I'm here to let you know that October is a really fun month for us. Halloween is Alex's favorite holiday. She will  go as far as having multiple halloween costumes for that one night. So we are working on making it an extra special one this year. There are plenty of posts coming up this month but we've been a little flaky due to school. In November this blog turns 2! We are still not sure how to celebrate this milestone but I'm sure we will come up with something fun.

Talk to you soon

THE BROAD

LA has been buzzing since the grand opening for The Broad last weekend. The Broad is a new museum of contemporary art in downtown. According to the website for the past 40 years, the Broads have assembled a private collection of contemporary art that feature masterworks by more than 200 artists including Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, and Roy Lichtenstein. I'd like to add that the name is pronounced BR-OO-ED not like the common word BROAD,  yes I know, I was just as surprised as you are. 

Entrance is free but due to it's popularity you must reserve tickets in order to get in. If it weren't for Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room we wouldn't have gone the first week of opening. That's honestly the reason why we made the trip there. Her installation looks absolutely amazing but unfortunately, due to it's popularity, we weren't even let in. To my understanding, the installation only allows one person to view it at a time so you can imagine how long that'll take since that's what most people want to see. Our tickets were for 4:30 PM on a Thursday afternoon and the Infinity Mirrored Room was already booked for the rest of the day. We will definitely be going back to attempt to get in again. Although we were disappointed about not being able to see the room, art is something we have a deep appreciation for so the rest of the collections were nonetheless exciting to admire.

That same afternoon we also went to MOCA for the very first time. I think I enjoyed the art at  MOCA a lot more but I'm not sure why. Maybe the vibe and the art felt less pretentious than at The Broad? I'm not sure because there were some of the same artists at MOCA that there was at The Broad so... you'll just have to go and see for yourself because I can't figure it out at the moment. 

I'd also like to share that it was my very first time driving out to Downtown LA. I experienced the dreaded LA traffic, road rage, and the disaster that it is when it comes to finding and paying for parking. Not everything went right on this trip but it was a fun experience! I recommend all of you to go to DTLA and submerge yourself in art and maybe some coffee in between museums.  

Thanks for reading! 


PRO TIPs:
-MOCA is completely free on Thursdays after 5 o' clock. Any other day you need your school I.D to pay $6 instead of $12.  
-Most parking lots are $8 instead of $12 after 4 o'clock during the week.

JEFF KOONS

KEITH HARING

BARBARA KRUGER 

MOCA

THOMAS STRUTH

MARK ROTHKO

SHARON LOCKHART

FAREWELL SUMMER DAZE | 2015

It's now September which means summer has officially ended but we have one last adventure to share. A few days ago we shared photos from our desert road trip and now we have a video too! The video below chronicles the entire road trip  with our besties. The trip was a perfect way to say goodbye to our summer daze and now is helping us get through a terrible case of post-summer depression.

Let us know what you think!!

DESERT ROADTRIP | 2015

Remember that time I talked about going on an epic road trip across California? Well this is not that road trip. One afternoon while enjoying the summer daze it hit us--it was all almost over. The end of summer sneaked up on us and we panicked. We couldn't let our summer end without doing something big. So we planned a road trip to a place none of us had been to in a long time : the desert. I've personally been obsessed with the idea of a desert road trip for a long time. I love the blazing heat, the vast emptiness and the landscape itself. After months of dropping hints and casually mentioning it to the $QUaD they finally agreed because they knew it was the perfect way to end our summer. If you didn't know already, Alex and I are college students. As you read this Alex and I are on campus hustling to get our degrees so ending our summer with a bang was very important to us

Throughout this road trip we stopped  in Cabazon, Pioneertown, Niland, and even made our way down to the coast of San Diego. Obviously, we couldn't do something this cool without documenting it in every way possible.

You'll see more from this trip very soon!