*Also, I may need to explain to some people that when a word is light brown, that means there is a link attached to that word. Just click on the word and it will take you to the link.
On Saturday we went to the Getty Center. The Getty Center is a magnificent art museum here in L.A. that houses European paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs. J. Paul Getty was one of Americas first Billionaires, and this museum, along with another art villa in Malibu, are run by the J. Paul Getty trust. It is free to go to this center, and it is truly breath taking. It was remodeled in 2006 and the architecture is really amazing.
The Getty Center sits on a 110 acre hilltop in Santa Monica, you park at the bottom of the mountain and ride a tram up to the Getty center. Ok, parking is $8, but the rest of the center is free. Sean really enjoyed this ride, he thought it was a choo choo.
The architecture reminded Jason and I of a movie we really like called Gattaca.
The exterior of the complex is covered in Travertine stone. It took 1.2 million square feet, 16,000 tons, of travertine. My brothers shower is made out of travertine too...just and interesting fact.
It is cleft-cut, textured travertine, and apparently is changes color with the changing angle of the sun. This travertine was brought in from Bagni di Tivoli, Italy which is east of Rome. The Getty's made there fortune in oil, just in case you were wondering.
The center is huge with several galleries, classrooms, offices, an auditorium and research center. There are fountains all over, it is a really surreal place to walk through.
This is a picture looking down into one of the gardens. There is a little river that runs through the grounds and ends in a waterfall here in this garden.
This is a westward view looking out onto the pacific ocean.
This is a east view looking back onto downtown L.A. This may look like cloudy, rain weather to you but don't be fooled.....it's just smog. It doesn't look it's usual brown today because Hurricane Dean brought us a little upper cloud cover, so the sun is not relentlessly beating down on us. (yes I know, I am an ungrateful sun hater)
More beautiful fountains, it was hard to keep Sean out of them.
This is the little river that runs thought the grounds.
The boys......and there furrowed brows. "What do you mean stop for a picture, geez!"
One of the reasons we went to the Getty was because there was an outdoor concert for kids out on the garden lawn. On Saturday the performer was Tom Chapin and friends. Apparently he has won Grammy's for his children's music. The Getty provided you with a blanket to sit on, an umbrella for the sun and a box of animal crackers, pretty cool!
There were lots of kids there and the music was good. All the kids down in front are dancing, very cute.
This guy wrote a piano tune for ESPN, he played it for us but since Jason and I are not ESPN fans I didn't really recognize it.
This guy wrote the Entertainment Tonight song. Both of these men are filthy rich! They get paid every time that there songs are played.
Talk about cute dancing, here he is!
He didn't want to go up front, he wanted to save the moves for mom and dad to watch.
He was really getting into it.
Then he decided to cool it and read his John Deere riding lawn mower flyer instead.
Everyday since we have been here Sean has asked to go to Lowes and see the lawn mowers. Everyday I tell him that daddy has the car so we can't go. Last Friday I took Jason into work so I could have the car and Sean, seeing that we had the car asked "go to Lowes mom?". So yes, I took him to his beloved Lowes, however there are no riding lawn mowers in CA Lowes. Nobody really has a need for riding lawn mowers down here, much less mowers. There was about two options at Lowes, regular and electric. Sean was happy anyway.
I could not take pictures inside the museum so sorry no art pictures today. We did see a really great exhibit of Oudry's Painted Menagerie. Jean-Baptiste is a French painter (1686-1755), who produced life size canvas paintings of animals during the 18th century. These paintings have not been viewed for 150 years, the Getty museum conservation department worked for years to restore the prints and they are on display here (at least for another week).
We also saw Manet's Bar at the Folies-Begere (1882), this is a very popular French painting that is here for another week, borrowed from a museum in London. It is a painting that was very controversial in it's time and gave Manet the title "painter of modern life".
I could tell you more, but I think I would bore you and lose half my readers so I will stop now.
This very strange contraption was in the entrance to the gallery. It appears to be a giant bag pipe organ thingy.
These are the air bags....
and these were the "horns". It played every hour, and it made a rather terrible noise.
I am not sure if this is a face of facination or fear.
There was a child's play area were kids could "explore" art.
This was an illuminated wall that the kids could draw on with dry erase markers. Don't get any idea's Sean!
I told you it was hard to keep him out of the fountains. Oh, oh, he almost made it!
Wheew we made it, thanks for sticking through the whole post.
Well it looks like my buddy hurricane Dean is leaving us now, so our weather down here is going to be heating up. Today it is back up into the high 80's and it will gradually get worse the rest of the week. I will do my best to spare you my complaints.
Am I the only one who hates the heat? I mean heat, not just sunshine.
Sarah
3 comments:
you get to trully see why I moved out of CA. Crazy people, hot weather and no fresh air. Hehe. Love the post, glad you guys are out and about
I bet you will explore more of the area than Trent has seen in 8 or 9 yrs.
Connie
(but I may be wrong - maybe I just didn't hear about it???)
Hi, Just want to let you know that I look forward to your post and I haven't missed a day. It is like we are touring California with you.
Cindy Locke
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