Last week I attended the closing reception for FORAGE: OCEAN at Dorado 806 Projects in Los Angeles. It was an amazing experience because the gallery also hosted a chanoyu (traditional Japanese tea ceremony). Tea practitioner Kaoru Kuribayashi from UCLA prepared matcha in a gallery tea house built by Tea Pacific with Pacific Plastics (TCwPP)…an initiative aimed to address the environmental issues of sustainability and oceanic plastic pollution. I’m also happy to say that my Albatross mask in the show sold!
I was also able to spend a few days in Joshua Tree National Park and talk about my mask-making and outfit design with Joshua Tree Dark Skies. I included a demo on low-light HDSLR photography. Dark Skies is a club that promotes star gazing and night photography. Dark sky initiatives are so important in places like Joshua Tree, where nearby towns like 29 Palms and Palm Springs are an encroaching source of ambient light pollution. There are not a lot of dark sky certified spots left in California so this is a special place that needs to be protected.
