I, Tourist

For this second week of my stay-cation, I've been trying to visit some local L.A. attractions. I finally visited the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the L.A. County Museum of Art on Wilshire and Fairfax. It's a very impressive building! Of course, the Broads have a magnificent collection of modern art, including pieces by Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Barbara Kruger, John Baldessari, Cindy Sherman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Chris Burden, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and many more. I parked on 6th Street and walked thru the La Brea Tar Pits Park to get to the Museum. I always love to see the tar bubbling up through the grass and check out the statues of ancient dinosaurs and wooly mammoths! I also visited the former May Company building (May West) to see Cheech Marin's collection: Chicano Painters of L.A. Wow! What a fabulous collection. All of my favorites are represented: Patssi Valdez, Gronk, Carlos Almaraz and more. Here's a short slide show of my adventures. Too bad I wasn't allowed to take photos inside the exhibits.

Today, Joan and I went on a major field trip! We drove up the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu to visit the Adamson House. I've been there several times, but I always see something new during each visit. The Adamson house is sort of an advertisement for all that Malibu Tile Co. had to offer during the 20's and 30's. The house is a showpiece of tile use. It's positively magnificent. You can read about a little bit of the history of the house here.

Joan in the upstairs kitchen @ The Adamson House

After our extensive tour of the house and grounds, we drove a little further up the coast to the Malibu Seafood Cafe, a delightful outdoor lunch spot. Joan had the ahi tuna burger and I had a cup of their faboo clam chowder and some fish tacos. Everything was so fresh! Just sitting, eating and overlooking the ocean was wonderful. After lunch we drove back to the Malibu Pier to see how the restoration has progressed. It looks great. There's only one restaurant (where the old Alice's Restaurant used to be) The Beachcomber, but more are in the works. There were lots of people fishing off the Pier. It was a perfect day for our field trip. I do love Los Angeles...every single corner of it!