We were in LA for a wedding late this summer. Charles was in the wedding, which meant while he was off doing photos, I got a chance to explore. You are who you are, in the Midwest or the West Coast. True to form, I searched out a museum and a garden.
It turns out the Getty Center was an excellent choice. Perched in the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains, overlooking the city and the ocean, the Getty gave me a great perspective on the Los Angeles. Getting there was an experience in itself--parking is below (or uber drop off, as the case may be), from which point all visitors take a dedicated tram up the bluff to the museum. A bevy volunteers greets the tram as passengers disembark. On the top of the bluff everything manmade is white--Bright white, off white, soft white, Meier white (Richard Meier, the architect of the Getty Center, was so fond of a particular shade of white it was named after him). An open, airy sense pervades the space. Though the arcitecture is unabashedly modern, there is a quality of mediteranian antiquity about the place, a comfortable, lively, grandeur. I learned later that the columns were in fact constructed of the same marble as the coloseum in Rome. It seems I was feeling exactly what I was supposed to feel.
From the tram I embarked on a garden tour--a decent from clean white lines into lush green. Alluring water features (some turned off because of the drought) and unexpected flora pulled us down a zig zag path to the garden below. We were all given umbrellas at the start of the tour--for sun, not rain--and it was a hot sunny day. When I had had enough sun I retreated to the cool interior of the museum and the art it held. Early photography, including the photo series that proved horses lift all their feet of the ground at once and helped launch animation, was my first stop. From there I saw medical-style scans of paintings by renaissance artist Andrea del Sarto, showing revisions and alterations, marble busts making faces (still renaissance!), a giant vase from the Parisian Word's Fair and bronze sculptures from antiquity. I did not get to half the galleries. Some day, perhaps I can tour the Getty Center again with friends or family.
The morning after the wedding, having gone to bed several hours before my spouse, I again found myself with a little free wandering time. Our hotel had a free bike to check out, so I went for a ride around the neighborhood, ending up at the UCLA botanical gardens just as they opened up. A giant white tree, visible from our hotel room over a mile away, gorgeous succulent gardens and a very informative medicinal garden a few of the things that stand out from these gardens. At one point I spotted a humming bird. It stayed in my vicinity for the better part of five minutes, zipping away to a tree and then back again. After the first couple of minutes I admit I took a horribly boring video, attempting to capture for ever an experience completely ephemeral. Rounding a bend, thinking I was almost done with surprises, I found stand of bamboo nearly covered in writing. From English to Chinese, people declared love (and probably other things) to all who would look.
Not long after we were winging home, over the Grand Canyon and beyond.
