hey, let's go live in some paintings (or how i learned to stop worrying and went to arizona).

what kind of monster wouldn't find this beautiful?

or this...



you'd have to be an actual monster. i really feel as though we are just passing through ideas of what beautiful is. this place really gives saskatchewan a run for its living-sky money. only, arizona manages to have both wide open spaces and mountains. aitor and i are both pretty awestruck.

we rolled up this evening to our digs for the next few nights, the shady dell trailer park in bisbee, arizona.



and look what greeted us:



this is the most extravagant we have yet let ourselves be on this trip - four days and three nights of living out of a restored 1950's trailer. really, it costs about as much a motel. our budget (and fate) led us to the little "homemade" trailer that we will be staying in for the next few days. we immediately fell in love with our little temporary home in the desert. it defies physics in its ability to house us and, we believe, is the actual form of romance.





wow.

so long, suckers.

today we escaped from los angeles with one final tourist stop before we left - we had to. we took beachwood up to where it ends, at which point we did a very brief hike to some hollywood sign photo spots. from this vantage, one can also turn around and see los angeles.



you have to believe me that the city is down there. in a brazen act of irony, the pollution in the air manages to erase most traces of development making this scene look gently bucolic. but don't be fooled; there is no misty ocean down there, just a sea of airborne crud. speaking of which, my asthma has been so bad here i could hardly hike the forty steps it took us to see the hollywood sign. it was time to hit the desert - the real desert, not the one that has been watered enough to develop lawns.

and what wonders the california desert held once we pushed into it!



the next stop on our inadvertent cult movie tour of america tuned out to be cabazon, california. the more awesome among you may remember those dinos from peewee's big adventure. as it turns out, the cabazon dinosaurs actually serve a greater purpose in sharing creationist resources to dino fans. you can also climb in the belly of one and buy geodes.



you can't tell from the photo, but this dino's face was full of screaming children. i was unable to save them because the admission into its tail was too hefty for my pocket book. i wanted postcards instead. besides, i think it was a clever grift.

tonight we sleep on the very edge of california. tomorrow, we enter out true love of arizona.

jurassica (and other points of interest)

at the adamant urging of our friend leah, aitor and i managed a visit to the museum of jurassic technology. this visit was today. los angeles can be so overwhelming to outerlanders like us that we were pleasantly surprised to find the museum to be walking distance from josh's place. nothing is walking distance from anything here. and if it is, you drive. but after being cooped up in the car for such long stretches, walks are very well received.

i can't quite describe the experience of visiting the museum. it is at once confounding and uplifting, occupying a space wherein ridiculous truths and ridiculous lies seem about the same. it's very hard to tell what's real there, but some of the information shared surely is. they also don't allow flash photography or tripods in the museum so my photographs are equally obfuscated. here is one depicting things to make string out of (from one of my favoirte exhibits - about string games):



on the way home, we found a curiosity of our own:



i guess if nobody is walking around one can do anything one wants to the sidewalk.

with minds fully boggled by the museum (and urine encounters), we powdered up and went out to an art auction. i felt very swanky, indeed, to have somewhere like an art auction to go while in los angeles. it was a fundraiser for faythe levine's indie craft documentary, handmade nation, and was hosted at the poketo studio space.











we also discovered that not only did the building have a roof with a stellar view of los angeles, but that said roof also had an outdoor pool and hot tub. an upshot of traveling is that one might have one's swim trunks in the car at any given time. i have no pictures of aitor in his trunks on this roof in los angeles; but for those who know, seeing aitor in his swim garb is a rare treat anywhere...and should probably be done in person.

good night, los angeles. we have to get going. i'm also afraid we might start to dislike you if we stayed too long. i mean, no offense. it's just a feeling.

house cleaning.

i am late on all fronts in announcing these things (i blame my current itinerant lifestyle), so i decided to do a small post from the comfort of my friend josh's los angeles living room to update you all and convey the exciting pieces of news i have collected while on the road.

#1 - upcoming programming from city of craft.
jen and leah are cramming the toronto summer full of crafty activity in my absence including a clothing swap (with tutorials on reworking old clothes), a children's-themed craft sale/day (with the workroom and good catch). check the website and facebook page for more details and updates.

#2 - goodegg industries.
i am actually appalled at how late i am in reporting this, but my good friend and city of craft co-conspirator, jen anisef, has teamed up with her pal laural to launch goodegg - a new shop to showcase the art and craft works coming out of canada. it's worth a good poke around. both of these ladies have exceptional taste and are deeply supportive of/thoughtful towards the canadian craft scene.

#3 - makesomething.ca
speaking of good taste and mad skills, karyn from the workroom has also taken the leap into the blogesphere with makesomething.ca. as with everything i have ever seen karyn take on, it is impeccable, useful and brilliant right from the start.

#4 - all citizens on etsy.
the all citizens shop has also taken a plunge - into online sales with a new etsy shop. the hope is that this online outlet will supplement the modest income that the shop is able to bring in at their rural saskatchewan location. i think i get to claim some part in this through encouragements. so i will do so. since i suggested that serena do this, you have to go buy things there so that i am not proven wrong. also, if you have never heard of all citizens and their story, you should go read their old blog.

post script of no importance: today we ate lunch in a mall food court (century city mall) that was unlike anything i have ever seen. it was also one of the most satisfying meals i have encountered yet on the road. los angeles is full of weird surprises and glamor...and the waiters look like movie stars.

reform school.

when i asked my friend faythe what shop to visit in los angeles she told me that reform school made the top of her list, so we made the trek across hollywood to get there. what a great place! there is a sort of independent art/craft shop that just makes me feel at home. and it has been sublimely comforting to find more and more of such shops popping up in the wake of this explosion of indie craft.

i met tootie there (one of two owners) and am happy to say that she took a few sweetie pie buttons. i hope this is the beginning of a long relationship. those ladies really have a nice sense of aesthetic, at once colluding with indie craft trends and clearly putting their own stamp on it through curation. they also have an art-o-mat!

further south.

i should mention that we ended up spending a night in santa cruz because and old friend (who i think i have not seen for at least twelve years) happened to attend the renegade craft fair in san francisco. rachel is now living in santa cruz studying something relating to organic farming. she made the dangerous mistake of offering us a place to stay. as it turns out, she was serious. this is why we got to spend a lovely evening and part of a day in that seaside town. also, that picture up there is really a peek into how aitor travels. if you were wondering how he looks so sharp while we travel, the answer is accessories.

rachel was into seeing how i made buttons so i brought out the machine and hammered out a few of emma segal's unpopular vegetables (naturally) so that rachel could wear some to the class she teaches.



we shoved off in the afternoon (after eating some tacos) and headed towards los angeles and our friend josh's place. one of the upshots of going to santa cruz is that we got to spend some time on smaller roads before getting to the i-5. we don't always have the time to take side roads, but i prefer it when we do.







we got into the endless sparkling of los angeles at a nearly reasonable hour. although we made the mistake of wanting a corner store late at night. this is the kind of place where you really have to know your way around. oh, and the smog in southern california (currently amplified by all the forest fires) makes for some haunting sunsets.

time to shuffle forth.

we have to leave the bay today. it's sad but forward motion is important to our survival - like sharks.

before leaving, however, we needed to do a few more things to ensure our hungers for san francsico were appeased.

we started the day with a trip to giant longs. it is a longs drug store in oakland (i think) that genevieve recommended we visit. she had not lead us astray yet so we heeded her advice. the place is amazing. i hope i am not ruining anyone's closely guarded secret here, but they have a ridiculously good fabric section. they stocked a huge collection of 1930's reporductions - and most of them were $3.67/ft. i kind of freaked out about that.

after making a huge fabric score (that now has to find a home in the car), we headed across the bay to visit some stores.



little otsu was sadly close for the day. but we did discover a new store called curiosty shoppe (also closed) a few doors down. they seemed to be stocking a bunch of stuff from favorite craft-makers of mine. we had also come to the area to check out paxton gate, an actual shop of curiosities and botanicals. aitor was saddened to confront the fact that our wandering ways could not guarantee the survival of an ostrich egg that he wanted to purchase. it's a pretty cool, store. they even had flowering pitcher plants in the back yard!



next store to that, we unwittingly wandered into 826 valencia - a tutoring and literacy centre fronted by san francisco's only pirate supply shop. the pirate shop pays the rent for the tutoring space and is also pretty exciting regardless of that. those mcsweeny's guys. they really do some good work.

on our way to the car, we also got swept up in this public portrait project. i felt too messy to be photographed, but aitor is always picture perfect so he posed for them. i think i even spy someone there with a mustache-on-a-stick by something's hiding in here.







to finish off the day, we had one more store to visit - rare device on market street. rare device is a lovely little indie art/design oriented shop with a nice sized gallery wall. the current show (and window display above) is called home and features the works of julia rothman and caitlin keegan. it is pretty lovely. you might want to go check it out.

after this last stop, it was time to roll out to our overnight destination of santa cruz. we ended our night on the boardwalk you might remember from the lost boys (if you are as old as me). just in case you don't remember: