Lifestyle
Let these California artists take you on their journey in search of peace and connection
Earlier than the beginning of the vacation season, I used to be requested to place collectively a particular on-line characteristic, so I requested artists with ties to Los Angeles and the remainder of the Golden State to interpret the place and the way they discover peace. These creatives responded in their very own kinds — highlighting household, womanhood, hometowns and companions.
When artist Man One and I have been working collectively, he informed me, “[Peace] has been beneath their noses the entire time.” What’s featured under embodies the surprising. That is our reward to you.
I discover peace within the serendipity of life. It’s getting access to the puzzle and willfully making the items fall into place. We hope these 15 California artists might help you discover connection and peace. Simply watch the puzzle fall into place.
Man One
“TYPEFACE: PEACE”
Spray paint, oil pastel and paint marker on birch wooden panel
“Activate some music, shake my spray cans and get misplaced in my very own artistic expertise. That’s my favourite recipe. Peace is at all times proper there, beneath our noses.” @manoneart
Felicia Chiao
“Spoke small set”
Copic markers and ink on brown-toned paper
“I’m an industrial designer and illustrator based mostly in San Francisco. I discover my peace most simply by means of drawing. Placed on some good music, make a superb drink, and I’m off in my very own world!” @feliciachiao
Hok
“A journey inside a Dream”
Digital media, ink on paper, stop-motion animation
“There are such a lot of issues that we undergo within the time we’re alive. Some are blissful, some are unhappy, some are magical, some are tragic. … After I undergo an awesome quantity of feelings, I discover my peace by using these emotions and creating one thing stunning out of them.” @kilihali
Rhiannon McGavin
“Cinerama”
Falling asleep in your shirt is a bit
like falling asleep on the films,
in that theater the dimensions of an unnamed
planet — so large, I’m a child once more, irrespective of
how intelligent I used to be within the lengthy day exterior.
The ceiling’s arc is a winter coat
held between you & the rain, held over the rows
of everyone & their night postures,
tilted again simply so. The orchestra & dialogue,
the road noise past your upstairs window,
all of it fades to a river half-thawed.
Someplace above us by means of the sheets of darkish,
mild whirs into new shapes on the display
large enough to curve its personal horizon. For something
I do know, it’s the identical scene over & over —
you reaching throughout the desk
to brush my cheek on the all-night diner.
Act out the components I missed
& I’ll watch your arms moderately than say
how typically I stand up from desires of you,
your cleaning soap & sweat & marzipan
in medium cotton black
free round my chest. It’s nothing dangerous,
the truth that I can shut my eyes right here,
that’s prime gold, isn’t it so onerous to search out
such softness within the crowd?
You can pull a faith from this,
just a little peace, a velvet patchwork,
my metropolis of murmurs, all of us
secure sufficient at midnight,
for the darkish to solely be
what hasn’t occurred but.
Promise simply this — deep contained in the shadow,
within the penumbra, my head in your shoulder,
us trying the identical method for a number of hours.
Come on, come right here, kiss me awake.
I don’t thoughts seeing it once more.
@rhiannonmcgavin
Carlos Jaramillo
“Tierra del Sol”
“Of the six locations I’ve lived within the U.S., Los Angeles jogs my memory most of the place I used to be raised. I used to be born to immigrant mother and father — my mom is Mexican, my father is Colombian — in McAllen, Texas, a small border city. L.A. is wealthy with Mexican tradition, and after one yr right here, I really feel related to the material of the town.
El Clásico de las Américas is a charreada, a rodeo-like sport, held in Pico Rivera yearly. Though I had by no means skilled charreadas, and I didn’t actually slot in, I got down to doc it as a first-generation Mexican American. I discover a sense of dwelling within the colours, the wonder and the ability. Most riders have been younger, an indication that they may cross on this borderless custom to their youngsters.” @_carlosjaramillo_
Grace Miceli
“I Would Prefer to Scream Out Loud and Not Care Who Hears Me”
Pen and marker on paper
“I’m at all times after really being wherever it’s that I’m. I wish to discover my physique and my breath, to soak up what’s throughout me whether or not it’s a sundown on a tropical seaside or a mountain of trash luggage on the nook of a siren-filled avenue.” @artbabygirl
Aman Okay. Batra
“Peace of fruit”
The place do I discover peace? Within the silence
between Zoom conferences. In line between folks,
ordering espresso earlier than I hear the information.
At Alchemist Espresso Mission,
each vegan blueberry espresso cake muffin
ought to have my title on it.
My title, translated from Punjabi to English,
means peace. They’re out of muffins.
The place do I discover me?
My good days are all stuffed with fruit:
pineapples, kiwi, my new man, plunging
pears right into a juicer, stem, core and all.
Rising up, Dadima minimize white nectarines
into crescent moons for her grandchildren —
her arms, fluent in providing.
I haven’t had a home-touched
meal in weeks. DoorDash dashers
eat my {dollars}, and Dadima
accused me of dodging her calls.
Everybody desires to know once I’ll be dwelling,
if they need to purchase additional fruit
for my return. My complete household is asking,
however I’m trapped in a Zoom
that might have been an e-mail.
Peace be the pause, the additional deep
inhale, Mama’s ruby purple earrings in
my ear lobes like pomegranate seeds —
a present from the final time I noticed her —
peace be her method of loving, of claiming
I miss you, right here’s just a little piece of me.
@amankbatra
Rikkí Wright
“a ritual of sisterhood”
“I grew up with two older sisters, who have been my finest mates and my supply of help by means of life’s trials and tribulations, starting with the lack of my mom once I was 2. My sisters taught me the ability of getting ladies by my aspect who I may very well be actual with and depend upon. My work seeks to seize this sense of energy.” @rikkwright
Fifi Martinez
“Untitled”
Ballpoint pen, ink and marker
“I’ve navigated existence as a particularly delicate particular person since I used to be a younger baby. Working with a average to extreme quantity of hysteria has been an on a regular basis actuality effectively into my maturity. After I was a baby, I believed the answer to my misery was the love I might obtain from the world. As I grew older and effectively into my maturity, I looked for a reduction from the chaos, worry and ache from lovers. Now, after surviving a pandemic through which most have been stripped of emotional, monetary and psychological sources, I’ve tailored and realized the final word grounding exists inside myself. I’ve realized that the consolation I’ve desperately looked for in my life resides inside me; I may very well be the peace I’ve at all times sought. The world is stuffed with ache, however inside ourselves we retailer a vault of timeless love that simply takes time and understanding to entry.” @baby_misery
Lydia Ortiz
“Sentinel Muse”
Blended media (ink and digital media)
“I discover peace in making artwork. I’m type of obsessive about drawing; it provides me a pure excessive. The method makes me really feel like I’m in love with one thing so summary. To me, creating is a type of meditation and an necessary device in therapeutic. I feel that’s why I hold desirous to make one thing new. A day isn’t full with out drawing just a little factor or ideating a brand new mission. The visible world simply fascinates me, and I like the little surprises it items me that finally creep into my work. I feel the peacefulness of all of it comes from working in isolation. You type of need to journey inward when making artwork and hope that no matter you make provides different folks the identical peace you discovered.” @lydia_ortiz
Mathew Scott
“Los Angeles Bouquet”
“In a metropolis dominated by automotive tradition, there’s a unusual magnificence to be discovered while you stroll round and consider it up shut and private. From the ethereal mild that performs off the buildings downtown to the various neighborhoods that line the Los Angeles River, there’s a little little bit of magic all over the place you flip while you decelerate and soak up your environment. Some days I got down to discuss with folks and make a portrait, whereas different days I’m trying on the delicate particulars like how the areas work together with the sunshine. It’s a fixed schooling in Los Angeles tradition and an try to achieve a greater understanding of what I might take into account essentially the most complicated metropolis I’ve ever lived in.” @mscottphoto
Annie Noelker
“I’ll be your ears, you’ll be my information”
“My sister, Jess, grew to become my finest pal and confidant within the few months we have been fortunate sufficient to dwell collectively through the pandemic. We realized a lot about ourselves and healed and performed and puzzled alongside one another within the time we had in Nashville. Within the remaining days earlier than I moved again to Los Angeles, we took one final journey to our favourite spot, just a little creek that ran by means of the woods on the outskirts of city. We splashed round like we have been children once more. Now we have a factor with water, the way it feels cleaning and new, weightless and fantastic. Jess is tough of listening to and needed to take her listening to aids out to swim. We communicated by means of massive gestures, that sisterly ‘understanding’ and by studying lips. We took a second to ‘hear’ with out listening and to easily really feel every part round us: the water swirling round our ankles and the odor of the woods and dust and late summer season. She makes me decelerate and be current within the second, current with the folks round me. She brings me again right down to earth. All I ever needed was to like her and be beloved by her. She is my peace. She is my dwelling.” @annienoelker
Valencia Spates
“Historic Dwellings”
Digital media, Procreate
“I’m a storyboard artist working in Los Angeles. I grew up in Kenosha, Wis., the place it was nothing however cows, corn and an previous windmill the place you possibly can cease for lunch. The Kemper Heart is a spot I discover peace as a result of it’s sitting off the sting of Lake Michigan surrounded by previous historic houses, just a little flower backyard and waves crashing towards the stones. Right here I discovered solitude the place I used to be in a position to apply my craft and skim books all day and let my creativeness go wild with artistic concepts.” @valenciaspates
Monique Wray
“Within the Sunshine”
Clip Studio Paint and Procreate
“I’m an illustrator from Miami residing in San Francisco. I grew up within the solar and nonetheless recognize being open air. That’s the place I discover peace.” @made.by.small
Alabaster Pizzo
“My day in L.A.”
“I’m a cartoonist, urbanist and public transit person initially from New York Metropolis, however I like residing in Los Angeles. I like to understand and doc the constructed atmosphere round me, and L.A. presents an limitless eclectic mixture of visible stimuli.” @alabasterpizzo
An image released by University of Tokyo researchers shows a robot smiling, with the help of mechanical actuators beneath a flexible layer of living skin.
Takeuchi et al. CC-BY-ND
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Takeuchi et al. CC-BY-ND
If humanoid robots make you a bit queasy — would it help if they had fleshy faces that can smile at you?
The uncanny feat is the result of new technology using engineered living skin tissue and human-like ligaments to give robots a more natural smile, according to Tokyo University researchers who unveiled their work this week.
“In this study, we managed to replicate human appearance to some extent by creating a face with the same surface material and structure as humans,” professor Shoji Takeuchi, the team leader, said in a news release. In the process, he added, “we identified new challenges, such as the necessity for surface wrinkles and a thicker epidermis to achieve a more humanlike appearance.”
The approach promises to make robots more lifelike — and in the future, the researchers say, similar techniques could also be used on humans, in the cosmetics and plastic surgery industries. Their findings were published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.
A new method of binding living skin tissue to a robotic skeleton will allow more humanlike expressions and better range of motion, according to researchers from the University of Tokyo.
Takeuchi et al. CC-BY-ND
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Takeuchi et al. CC-BY-ND
To overlay and connect the lab-produced skin on a robotic skeleton, a layer of collagen gel containing cultured human dermal fibroblasts (a type of connective tissue cell) binds to an innovative system of tiny V-shaped perforations in the surface, letting the skin move with the underlying structure without tearing or peeling. The work of muscles — creating a smile, and other motions — is done by actuators.
Takeuchi’s Biohybrid Systems Laboratory has previously engineered skin that can heal, created small robots with biological muscle tissue, and 3D printed lab-grown meat. He says the latest work on living skin has a string of potential next steps.
“Self-healing is a big deal — some chemical-based materials can be made to heal themselves, but they require triggers such as heat, pressure or other signals, and they also do not proliferate like cells,” he said. “Biological skin repairs minor lacerations as ours does, and nerves and other skin organs can be added for use in sensing and so on.”
It’s critical for robots to have the ability to heal and self-repair, the researchers said in their study, because even small scratches could develop into serious impairments.
Biomimetic robots could also become even more realistic with thicker skin, Takeuchi said, adding that future projects could look to add sensors, pores and even sweat glands and fat. The team’s paper says their work could also bring insights into how humans’ wrinkles are formed. And by incorporating more sophisticated actuators and eventually, cultured muscle tissue, their approach could help robots in the future move in fluid, humanlike ways.
For now, the robot can’t feel its face, putting it in a category pioneered by Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd. Not long ago, many of us smiled when technology managed to put the singer’s words about his face into the mouth of a U.S. president.
Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: I was interested in the hottest guy at the gym. But was he interested in me?
They say your 30s are better than your 20s for myriad reasons: better sense of identity, more financial stability, less defined by ego-filled standards. For me, I was completely satisfied in every department in my life except romance.
I met Dave, an attractive 37-year-old man with salt-and-pepper hair and a contrasting red-colored beard, at the Toluca Lake CrossFit gym where we’re both members. He was a fit, recently divorced white male with children.
I was a 30-year-old, semi-fit first-generation Latina who had never been proposed to. It was like a tale of two cities if you will.
I instantly thought Dave was alluring, but pursuing him meant facing my fears; in a past life, I was the anxiously attached girlfriend who was always worried about male-female interactions and those extreme fictitious scenarios that led to self-destruction.
I kept thinking, “Me? Dating a divorced man with kids — and risking societal judgment for dating him?” I couldn’t bear it. Even worse, his ex-wife was still a member of the gym.
Out of all the CrossFit gyms in Los Angeles, I just had to walk into his.
I had small talk here and there with Dave, but taboo kept encroaching on the possibility of an “us.” After a year of moseying around each other, divine intervention skewered us better than Cupid’s arrow, and we were brought together.
It’s widely known in the CrossFit community that on Memorial Day weekend we all commit to honor fallen service members by challenging ourselves in completing the Murph Hero workout. It’s a one-mile run with 100 repetitions of pull-ups, 200 repetitions of push-ups, 300 repetitions of squats, capped with another one-mile run. Typically barbecue and brews are had afterward. I did the 8 a.m. class; Dave did the 9 a.m. class. We stayed for hot dogs but found good company with each other.
In my attempt at flirting I asked him, “How does it like to be the fittest guy at the gym?”
He responded, “Do you want the real answer or the short answer?” It was daring, a bit provocative, yet simple enough to open the doors to let each other in.
The connection post-workout might have stemmed from the intensity of pushing our physical limits or possibly from the delirium of not knowing what had just happened. Or maybe it was just “excitation transfer.” No matter what it was, after we started talking, we never stopped.
His undeniable intelligence complemented my sharp-focused wit. I knew this connection was something different. The gravitational pull between us could have kept a small moon in orbit.
After moving from the barbecue to the bars with friends, he asked me out on our first official date, marking the beginning of summer. At Laurel Tavern in Studio City, where I’m sure many first dates begin, Dave and I exchanged laughs and stories on a majestic June evening as friends gathered for happy hour and families celebrated their loved ones’ college graduation. The drinks were flowing, and we — two acquaintances — soon became love interests who had second and third dates.
As high as we had our head in the clouds, everything soon came crashing down. Dave was leaving L.A. for a planned trip to Europe with his ex and their children. As Dickens put it, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”
My greatest fears began to unfold as I crept back into the only defense mechanism I’ve ever known. But Dave wasn’t the men of my past. He was something much greater.
When my friends asked why would I date a guy who had been previously married, there wasn’t a second thought. It wasn’t beyond me that Dave’s previous life looked completely different from my own.
I was able to see him for who he was. After all, he’s the type of man who would be the first person to make you feel welcomed if you were to walk into a CrossFit gym for the first time. He’s the type of man who goes to Europe with his children and their mother because it’s the children’s first time and he doesn’t want to miss it. And if he does have a commitment like that, he calls you every night no matter what time zone or country he’s in. He also remembers to bring back a souvenir for you.
There was nothing I could do to change his past, but I was in control of how I navigated our future, especially when he made an effort to build trust. It was this simple thought in which I found solace. Suddenly the new chapter in Dave’s life was one in which I became a new character.
When he returned from Europe on July 4, our gravitational energy brought us back together, and our story as Dave and Jillian began. We coalesced, making our way through L.A.; having drinks at Casita in Sherman Oaks; or going on morning bike rides through Griffith Park. We navigated his life as a co-parent while dodging awkward situations at the gym. We still enjoyed 7:30 a.m. class time together — the class where we met. Then in October, we became an official couple. Those intrusive thoughts were nothing but an emotional scar beginning to heal.
Dave and I met at the precise time in our lives. Admittedly, we both like to say that everything in our past was in preparation for us to meet each other. Now, almost a year later, I can’t imagine a life without him. Something tells me that my 30s are going to be just fine.
The author is a publicist for a sports and live entertainment company in Los Angeles. She loves to cook and write, but only when she feels like it. She’s on Instagram: @jilliansalas12
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
A robot gets a face of living ‘skin’ that allows it to smile
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