California Part 1

I will never stop loving New Mexico. Never. Ever. But since here I am aimlessly wandering through California and have been doing so for a year now, it has become increasingly difficult to cast a blind eye to the fact that I am becoming a reluctant citizen of the Gold Coast.
I guess there are some cool things in California... See below for my very personalized celebration of my current locale.
When I left my old architecture firm, I was gifted with a collection of Paul Madonna's All Over Coffee (for lack of a better word) "comic" strips. They're beautiful in an existential, melancholy kind of way. He does these amazing drawings of the city, then punctuates them with random dialouges or musings. See for yourself:







San Francisco has grown on me, I'll admit it.
But that's not as surprising as the fact that LA also has. As best as I can explain it, it's because of the way it flaunts its fuschia pink way of life, or, for lack of a better word: culture. Yes, LA has a unapologetically American, superficial, flamboyant culture, and yes, I'm intrigued by the pink palmy poolside glamour/gritty gunmetal 12-lane highspeed insanity of it all.

Aardvark Letterpress, based in LA, exquisitely captures the essence of its hometown in its LA Loteria series:


El Espejismo - the Mirage.


El Eastside - according to the artist, Marc Lumer, this depicts the aftermath of a drive-by.



Via Lipsticktracez.

Here's what my cuz's pillowcase ended up looking like, since I remembered she liked purple:



More CA tomorrow!