you're the inspiration

yesterday marked the 2 yr anniversary of mike & i dating. we celebrated this past weekend by having a lovely breakfast on friday at starling diner. i had egg, bacon & cheese on a french baguette with some roasted potatoes, and mike had a decadent french toast (also made from a baguette) with candied apples, mascarpone & whipped cream. i really love this place, so cozy and cute.

on sat, we treated ourselves to the inspiring dan flavin retrospective at lacma, with the most interesting pieces exploring space, light, color & perception. when you enter the first gallery to see the first few pieces - mounted, painted canvases with various colored light bulbs attached, you may mistaken his work to be minimalist, but as you read the titles and experience more of the work, there's more than meets the eye. and you really can't believe your eyes, as light changes hue depending on where you are standing or where you just came from. the room (pictured above) appears green, but linger long enough, and it starts to look white, while the world outside turns a violet. one large room made up of smaller "cells" of lights installed in rows and columns was a kaleidescope of color. as you move, the colors mutate and mix. it's truly amazing to see what flavin has done with the simplest of materials -- fluorescent lights.

i am inspired and excited to experiment more with light. leds are as cheap as you can get, but when you use thousands of them, it can get pricey (as in my current piece).

after a brief visit to a gallery whose name eludes me, in culver city, to see deborah sussman's (mike's boss) work in a group show, we dined for the first time at frenchy's bistro. i always thought the name was rather silly every time i saw it driving by on anaheim, but some reviews on yelp made me consider giving it a taste.

after the escargots appetizer, mike had a baked salmon topped with crab meat in a lobster sauce, and i had seared sea scallops in a tomato-y sauce with wild rice and roasted tomatoes. we finished with a chocolate souffle. mike enjoyed his salmon, although not as much as i enjoyed my scallops, which i've never had with a tomato sauce. for the first time, i did not take home leftovers. it's better than la creperie, but not as good as ammo, which is still one of my favorites, but we will definitely be back (7 out of 10 stars). of course, i forgot my camera, so no food porn...