Foreign/Familiar

Acclimating to Los Angeles for the second time in two years, I find myself caught up in an oxymoron - I'm noticing the same differences I noticed last time. The plant life: rubbery, spiky, green in December. Palm leaves that could kill you if they fell when you weren't looking. The traffic in its endless but unhurried flow. Low-lying architecture with desert colors and textures. Buildings that can settle into the heat of an intense summer. And a general feeling of having been transported to another world, one that without an iPhone map, I'd be lost in forever.

Moments of real familiarity have appeared, however. Brent was excited to point out a gigantic donut he remembered from his childhood in LA, big enough to be seen from the airplane window. Once today we thought we were in a neighborhood we might have been in a year or so ago. Today, out walking, Brent became nostalgic for skateboarding when we came upon a neighborhood skatepark boiling with teenagers.

I'm not sure how all of this will play into the art ideas we are each internally mulling. For now, we are happily riding the see-saw of foreign and familiar, remembered and discovered, lost and found.