louise on the left (coast)

Meet Steve. He made this: I've been a huge fan of this artist ever since I first stumbled across this piece a few years ago. But, today I found even more work from the artist along with a video where he shares the great conflict of interests many artists wrestle with: How do you stay true to your artistic vision and still sell art? Well, in his case, he actually uses this dilemma as an opportunity to enlighten those who, outside of his artistic talents, he'd never otherwise be in the same peer group. Pretty cool video. Watch: Steve Lambert explains: It's Time to Fight from Steve Lambert on Vimeo Here's a few other pieces from Lambert I've also really adored. In no order of importance:

THE AWAKENING from ivan friedman on Vimeo .

Carandolet House, Private Runway Show,  with presentation by Albert Elbaz,  November 2011       Alber Elbaz looks on from the podium. The Lanvin team  were lovely and welcoming and I will never have a more treasured fashion memory than this. A night when I was graciously included in the event and not left outside the building until everything is finished and everything's been put away.  So rare for that to happen. Thank you to Monsieur Elbaz, for welcoming some of the parents to the table. I know how very, very unusual occasions like this will be.  You were pure class. Lanvin: Dallas Spring 2012

You have a small window of time left to catch some fine acting in a local theater production of "Lost In Yonkers" at the Costa Mesa Playhouse.  And you really do not want to miss this show. It’s a top-notch cast and moving production of Neil Simon’s nostalgic look backwards at a time when some things might be simpler, but others, like family dynamics, can be complicated.  This play offers a meatier balance between Simon's usual comedy and nostalgia. And by the time the show is over it is clear why it earned him a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize. Most of the action, as  in "Brighton Beach Memoirs," is filtered through the eyes of a teenage boy, in this case, 15-year-old Jay (Jude Henderson) and younger brother, Arty (Vincent Pernia) who is 13 and much more of a smart-aleck than his big brother. Jay struggles to make a trying situation bearable by carrying out his responsibilities with as little push-back and as much duty as he can muster, while A...

Just returned from a surprise visit to Vermont in order to celebrate my mother's 70 th birthday with her -- in person. It was not a lengthy trip, just a well-timed one. I flew out on the red-eye Monday night, Los Angeles to Manchester, N.H. and drove straight there so that by high noon on her birthday I could walk up to my parents back door, tap on the window and to prove I had not forgotten that this was "a biggie." To let her know I was really there. Which is precisely what I did. I peered in the window by their back door and could see my mother sitting at the dining room table speaking with someone on the phone, she glanced up at me stared at my shadow at the window. The only indication I had that she recognized was when she dropped her jaw in a familiar, exaggerated manner which I knew meant she realized it was really me out there. I couldn't hear what she was saying on the phone, but watched as she scrambled to find an excuse to hang up as politel...

What a summer. A week ago, tonight, my family and I flew back from having saturating ourselves in all the people and places most likely to press my buttons, and the emotional decompression from having spent two weeks with my parents in a place of heartbreaking beauty and intense emotional history for me was almost too much. The trip brought into sudden focus so many shelved dreams and forgotten promises I'd made to myself over the years, that in trying to juggle all the intense feelings that arise from facing one's own historical archetypes, that my emotions had been running so high for so long that, frankly, I was becoming numb after adding jet lag and shlepping kids across country in one day...I was so tired the next day that I almost forgot about the concert I'd insisted we buy tickets to earlier in the summer (Thank you, Neil Ravenna, for setting a fire under my ass for that.) In any event, the day after we got home, my husband and drove back up to Los Angeles to a...

Many, many years ago, before there was a 9/11, before there was a Barney's or a Wall Street collapse, or even a Wall Street crash, there was a particularly gritty, yet mostly quite festive place to live, called New York City. This story is not about New York, but it's about a particular dish served a particular night on a biting cold, lightly snowy New Year's Eve when I landed in town upon invitation of a very good friend. who immediately upon arrival invited me out to dinner at a little place near the 4th street station in the Village called The Red Lion Inn. I don't remember too much more about this evening, except that she and her friends were extremely generous and kind and that this evening everything single thing seemed to shine.  Just shine.  Everything.. The air was extremely cold and a snow lightly fell over all of us, all the taxis and thickly-coated pre-party revellers as they  make their way knowingly through the busy streets. After all, I was finall...