Terra Cotta Warriors

On Saturday we went with some friends to see the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. There were a number of terra cotta figures and interesting artifacts including architectural tiles, weapons and jade pendants. Some of my favorites were a very nice bronze heron sculpture and a suit of armor made out of limestone.

The most interesting part of the exhibit was a terra cotta warrior standing very still on a pedestal in the lobby. Visitors were amazed when he suddenly, but slowly, moved. Although he never spoke he amused people by giving slow high-fives, waving to children or walking slowly through the exhibit hall. The warrior was a performance artist from Taiwan, Jarry Cheng, who added an element of surprise to the experience. Here is a link to a YouTube video (not mine) as an example.

The last day of the exhibit is October 16, 2008 so you still have a chance to see it.

Lego Fun

One of the fun places we went this summer was the Lego Store in the Glendale Galleria. We have a small collection of Lego bits and pieces that had been accumulated during the 80s and 90s. It was interesting to see the variety colors and shapes that are available now. We had fun filling some plastic containers at the Pick-a-Brick wall. When we got home we spread out our new purchases and started combining them with our older bricks and just played around. It was therapeutic.

Re-ment Scale

I was requested to show images of my Re-ment items with some sort of reference for scale. I have read that Re-ment is about 1:6 to 1:8 scale. There is a difference between the two blenders in the first picture. The one on the left is from 2004 and the other one is from 2007. I've also included a picture of the more current blender with it's life size counterpart (which we so conveniently had on hand!) The Re-ment blender is 1.5 inches tall and the real blender is 15.75 inches tall.

Re-ment

Re-ment Blender from 2004
Originally uploaded by deeneedee

I got my first taste of Re-ment back in 2005 when I purchased a set from a grocery store in Little Tokyo. The detail of the miniature items was really amazing. I didn’t get into collecting them at the time because the sets were imported from Japan and were not widely available. This May I saw some sets for sale at the Vinyl Toy Network show and my interest was renewed. Re-ment now has a website in English that gives the locations of stores were their items can be purchased. So now I have been able to add to my collection. Good thing they are so small!

The image shows the first Re-ment set that I purchased, click on it to see more photos on my Flicker photostream.

August

Oh my! August is almost over and I haven’t posted for quite some time. Dan and I were busy with various projects and trips. One of the projects was organizing the garage and putting up shelves. We also got a new desk for my computer, Yay!

We took various trips to L.A. and San Diego. I have been uploading pictures on my Flickr account so check them out! And have a fun (and safe) holiday weekend.

San Diego

Orangutan and Siamang
Originally uploaded by deeneedee

Last week Dan and I took a trip to San Diego. We didn’t make it to The Comic Con because they had sold out of memberships. So instead we just visited the usual places, like the San Diego Zoo.

The first exhibit we went to is Absolutely Apes. It’s best to see them first because the apes are usually near the viewing windows. The day we went the orangutans and siamangs were out. They are very interesting to watch especially since they watch us to see what interesting things we might do.

The next stop was the Monkey Trails exhibit. They have a variety of different monkeys that sometimes share exhibits with other animals such as pygmy hippos or dukirs. After the monkeys we checked to see if the gorillas and bonobos were out. The gorillas were hiding in hard to see spots in the exhibit but some of the bonobos were out.

When we were done viewing the primates we checked out some of the other animals. On this zoo visit we stayed longer than we usually do and got to other parts of the zoo that we don’t often see. We took a lot of pictures. I’ve uploaded some on Flickr so check them out.

Pasadena Part II: Norton Simon Museum

After the the Vinyl Toy Network show, we went to the Norton Simon Museum to see the Marcel Duchamp Redux exhibition.

I took a few pictures out front of the Barbara Hepworth sculpture Four Square (Walk Through) and some of the Rodin sculptures. Dan helped by making the sculpture of Saint John the Baptist suitable for family viewing.

We went to the Duchamp exhibit first. It was smaller than I expected but they had some good pieces on display. They had a set of four "rotoreliefs" that were best viewed in person. These were motor driven turntables that rotated an image to give the impression of a form in movement. I had seen the still images in books (such as the fish in a pond) but it was good to see them in motion. I also enjoyed Boite-en-Valise which was a collection of some of his works (including The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even/The Large Glass) in miniature.

Next we went through the 19th century gallery because Mike prefers the older works of art. We also saw the Mallol Miniatures exhibit. It was interesting to see these smaller pieces after seeing his much larger sculptures in the garden.

We stopped in the museum store to see if they had a book on the Duchamp exhibit. There were books on Duchamp and DADA but nothing specific for the show. I got a post card of Duchamp as Rrose Selavy and some cool goldfish magnets. On the way out I got one last shot of Rodin’s Monument to Balzac.