Wlliam A. Laga, Bistrot Le Rousseau

Many don't know about William Laga. Unless you happen to be a student at UCLA rushing from class to class, he is a schizophrenic homeless man who would always hang around Starbucks near the Fox theatre. I myself only knew after turning on the news to hear that he is successful in Paris and has some paintings on view at Le Rousseau, a restaurant near Place St. Michel.

I took some photos when I was there. The paintings are just amazing to look at in person! My photos don't do it all justice because of the warm-colored walls, but you can see all the paintings on his site www.williamalaga.com. There is one photo you can see in particular that I am sitting next to, my most favorite painting of all his paintings. A wonderful day in Paris indeed!

Centre Pompidou, Paris

Finally in Paris! After all the sleep deprivation and 30 pounds of luggage, I'm trying to adjust to my new surroundings. After sleeping for 12 hours, I struck out for the Centre Pompidou and was not disappointed with the Inversion of Images exhibit. Excellent. The largest selection of surrealist works I've seen, surpassing the one at the Hammer I saw last year. Dora Maar, Man Ray, and a few other French/European surrealists that I wasn't familiar with with. I took a bunch of pictures but these are my favorites.

Funny Face

I am finally making use of this blog! After a year in deep hibernation and much contemplation, I am ready to re-define my own goals and that means keeping this blog up-to-date and consistent. The rest of my goal is to focus on my portfolio, especially when I will be in Paris this fall. Indubitably a hard task, but I hope this blog will allow me points of explorations that will circle back to me, again.

I'm putting up my most recent work, and also my current favorite. It's hard to put surrealism and kitsch into the same phrase so I'm happy with the final treatment of the photo. It was extremely hard to blend out my model's face (sorry Megan!) because it felt like blasphemy. But, the final result lends for a darker mood, more mysterious and thus more likely for endless interpretations. ¡Me gusta!