EASTON RHETT CURTISS

I’M GOING TO BE AN AUNTIE! kenna, the soon to be mama is one of my oldest friends. we grew up together, first on a cul de sac in eastbrook, then only a street away after we both moved to a different neighborhood. our families (and the lewis fam) were (and still are) always at an arms length of each other. it’s hard to mention one without the other, it’s been the mitchell, mccarthy and lewis family for a long time now… kenna, taylor and i even share the same tattoo to commemorate our lifelong friendship- because it’s not forever until you’ve got ink under your skin right?! i’m actually looking forward to showing our grandchildren our saggy tattoo after we all grow old… but first comes your son, baby easton. he’s due february 9, 2018 and he is already so loved. he’s one lucky dude to have you and casey as his parents.

last weekend we showered the hell out of mama and her baby boy, surrounded by friends, family and so much love.

you were able to create your own trail mix at the “trail mix bar” which meant NO RAISINS, HALLELUJAH! i’m not saying that my trail mix only consisted of m&ms but it was about 90% m&m’s and 10% popcorn. i really enjoyed my trail mix freedom.

after folks were able to get some food and drinks, we let the games begin…

GIRL’S TRIP: SAN FRAN

ahhhh girl’s trips…there really is nothing better than a good old fashioned girl’s trip. imagine us out all night, drinking fancy cocktails, walking in uncomfortable shoes and talking about all the crude things that girl’s actually talk about when no guys are around…a real sex and the city vibe you know? cut to us in our hotel room laying in bed, dana passed out and i using the massage tools we bought in chinatown…real ragers we are. in our defense, we had arrived early saturday morning and wasted no time in getting our feet on the ground and our bellies full. two things you should know about dana and myself…. we first bonded over donuts, then dogs…aaannnnd the rest is history.

first on our list (after many hours spent on yelp) was the ferry building marketplace. we walked through all the vendors, pet all the dogs and tasted all the fruit…we also had pie for breakfast. we came up with a couple of different hashtags for the weekend…#carbfest #dogsdogsdogs #kenzieanddanasweekendoffun all of which we only remembered after the weekend was already over but i guess that’s what happens when you are living in the moment…or stuffing your face with all the good food that san fran has to offer. seriously sf…i’m impressed.

after our morning at the ferry building, we started to make our way to the museum of ice cream. you might be thinking, “but kenzie, didn’t you both already go the museum of ice cream in la?!” why yes dear reader…yes we did and my reason for why we had to go see it again in sf is well… because…FOMO…and they had re-released tickets for the saturday we were going to be in town so it was like…. MEANT TO BE. we got these tickets very last minute and it kind of threw a wrench into our food itinerary so we had to rework our schedule a bit but it all worked out…we got the penis cookies in the end (put that on a bumper sticker).

the next morning, we hopped out of bed bright and early and headed to mr. holmes bakehouse. when i say “hopped” i mean that in the most literal sense possible. neither of us brushed our hair, i barely put my pants on but we wanted a cruffin so damn bad… love (food) makes us do crazy things.

stay tuned for more from our trip!

AN ITALIAN WEDDING

it was only in september when i was last in cortona visiting hannah and luca for the first time. fast forward 9 months and i’m back in cortona with my brother for their wedding…their WEDDING! this was cody’s first time in cortona (in italy actually) and i couldn’t wait to show him all the things that made me fall in love with this little town. i didn’t need to do much selling, cortona pretty much sells itself. between the wedding, sight seeing and pasta eating, i think he fell hard for it too.

cody and i flew into rome pretty early and couldn’t check in to our hotel until 2pm soooo we freshened up in the lobby bathroom (thank god for l’ocittane’s verbena refreshing towelettes) and began our first day in rome at 7:00 in the morning! (i think this is what they call making lemonade out of life’s lemons). first up? the spanish steps…cody was eager to run to the top and take in the view… i was eager to run from the sun and keep the awkward jumpsuit tan at bay (spoiler alert, i still got an awkward tan).

after a full day in the city, we were ready to check in to our hotel room and get some rest. with a nice shower and a belly full of pasta (i promise to show all the food pictures), it only took me about 3 seconds to fall asleep. i think i might take this secret back with me to the states and use it as my bed time remedy…

one train ride later aannnddd we made it to cortona! we went out to explore the town before dinner and ran into some familiar faces in the piazza; the bridal party, some wedding guests and even the bride and groom! i love small towns.

there was a market in the center of town over the weekend, so we spent our morning browsing all the vendors. with a lot of self convincing (and cody’s reply of “you don’t need that.” to my “but it’s itaaaalian!”) i managed to not buy a thing! it was hard….like really hard. after we walked through the market, we caught the train to florence to check out the uffizi museum and stop for lunch at my favorite sandwich spot. hannah took me to this place last time i visited and i couldn’t wait to take cody. he’s only heard me talk about it every day since we got into italy.

it’s wedding time!!! i’m so happy to have made the journey to witness these two share their love for each other. the ceremony was translated in english and italian and took place overlooking the beautiful province of arezzo. the day couldn’t be any more perfect. salute to the happy couple!

the day after the wedding, we went over to the house where hannah’s family was staying and hung out poolside with the newlyweds. it was the perfect way to spend our last day in cortona.

cody and i left for rome the next morning. this time around, we took a pretty relaxed approach to the city. we spent the time we had left in italy as laid back as we possibly could… wake up. eat pasta. roam the streets (pun intended). eat gelato. roam some more. repeat. we walked through the villa borghese gardens, found a bench and sat there for a couple of hours. there was a light breeze that day, i think i could’ve listened to the trees sway back and forth forever.

 

PLAYLIST NO.1 : CURRENTLY

Stockholm / 9-2-16 / 35mm Pentax

you can find my playlist here.

1. “same airport, different man”- julia jacklin
2. “life worth living”- laurel
3. “nothing, not nearly”- laura marling
4. “roma fade”- andrew bird
5. “get not high, get not low”- feist
6. “say my name”- tove styrke
7. “warhol”- lisa mitchell
8. “umpqua rushing”- blind pilot
9. “have mercy on me”- the black keys
10. “smoke”- mosa wild
11. “fish eyes”- haley heynderickx
12. “mama said”- cat clyde
13. “everything looks better (in hindsight)”- the wild reeds
14. “kocaine karolina”- elle king
15. “dear simone”- jacob banks
16. “my mistakes were made for you”- the last shadow puppets

 

THE MUSEUM OF ICE CREAM

last weekend, i went to the museum of ice cream – i have the sprinkles in my pants to prove it. upon our arrival, we were greeted with a bubble gum pink exterior and some bubble gum pink staff (ice cream “experts” as they described online). before we entered, the staff explained a little bit about the art and food inside and what exactly we were getting ourselves into. it felt more like a warning, as if they wanted to tell us what they had seen on the battlefield of ice cream but they couldn’t. they left us with a “HAVE A GOOD TIME!” and then we were off!

do you have any idea how hard it was for me to not sing “hollaback girl” by gwen stefani?this mochi changed my life. yes, i’m being overly dramatic but mint chocolate chip mochi is life changing. the staff gave each of us our mochi and explained how the mint was being grown from a cacao soil which meant that it was essentially being grown from chocolate (straight out of willy wonka or a whole foods store). i don’t think anyone cared that much about the mint process except for me… in that moment. i regret not asking for seconds but we’ve all seen oliver twist.

black cookie dough. it’s a thing and it’s amazing and the dude giving it out was hilarious. he made sure none of us had black in our teeth before heading to the next room. he’s a true friend.

like i said… i’m still finding sprinkles in my clothes.

 

 

DESERT X

after our failed attempt at camping in the desert this past weekend (who knew the desert got so hot? -that’s sarcasm) we decided to make some lemonade with our sour lemons so we stopped by the desert x exhibition on our way home to see mirage by doug aitken.

SXSW: AUSTIN, I LOVE YOU

finally getting around to posting some photos from sxsw and this is just the first batch! my brother-in-law was playing a showcase this year and i invited myself to join him and the boys in austin as their roadie/photographer/”we have 10 minutes to leave” alarm clock. i couldn’t wait to get back to austin. my first time visiting was with my brother back in october when we were in town for acl. it felt like we were visiting the face of the sun rather than texas (maybe texas is the sun?) but not even the heat could keep me from getting that tingly “i think i’m in love with you” feeling inside. i had never felt so at home in a place i’d never been before and when i returned “home” i think everyone realized just how close they were to losing me…

leo and i were the first of the sxsw crew to get to austin, so we hit the ground running and did some exploring, then our reality of a 4:00am wake up call from this morning started to set in so we went back to the hotel, took a 5 hour nap (we crashed hard) and then ordered room service… #yolo. come morning, we were refreshed and ready to avenge our lost time and show that nap just how rock ’n roll we really are!!…but first, coffee (skinny vanilla late please) and then things got really hard core…we went to the apple music showcase and met up with a friend of ours who works for beats 1 radio and was so nice as to share in the open bar and good music with us. thanks olivia xxoo.and so, my transformation of becoming a southern belle has begun- we drank, we mingled and we listened to good music (midland– above- stole all of our hearts, even the brit who doesn’t listen to country music). things started winding down and we were ready to head to the next show. midlands had just finished, we were all filing out and like a moth drawn to a flame (metallica) we experienced our very first pedicab ride in austin. i mean it was hard to say no, all signs pointed to “get in the friggin pedicab you’ll never make it on foot” so we got in. bless our pedicab driver (cyclist?) how he managed to lug us all the way downtown and keep up a conversation i will never know, but one thing i do know is he had great calves and i do remember staring at them for an uncomfortably long amount of time (uncomfortable on his end) and then being caught by him staring at his calves (uncomfortable on my end). 

we spent a lot of time at the british music embassy showcase because well…leo’s british… aaaannddd they had a really good line up.  as the night went on, the crowd kept getting bigger and bigger and at this point i was holding my camera, my new sxsw hoodie and my beer. i had no free hands to take pictures and too much crap to try and weasel my way to the front. the fact that i didn’t bring a purse or backpack was making me look weak and unprepared to the other sxsw attendees… i could hear all the whispers… “amateur” “how could she not bring a bag?” “wow, she is sooo unprepared”. but what all those naysayers didn’t know is that i was not alone. and that’s why i would like to go on record here and thank leo for holding my sweatshirt all night because it was expensive and i didn’t want to lose it and i wouldn’t tie it around my waist because it didn’t match my outfit. it’s because of you, i have these pictures to post, you are the real hero. you also gained major brother-in-law points and i promise that if you ever need to store anything in my purse, you can… just make sure you tell me ahead of time so i can coordinate how big of a purse i need to bring. k thanks! we danced so much this night… 1. leo and the boys had just finished an amazing show so we were all ready to celebrate 2. these guys know how to boogie, i’m just a little upset that i didn’t know about the matching metallic jackets and shoes… i was ready to throw down.

featured above- midland, the japanese house, the vryll society, sports

 

 

LULA’S GARDEN

a sweet friend gifted me this adorable succulent box for my birthday and i’m obsessed. i had two thoughts when opening my box- 1.”how friggin cute!” 2.”why have i never heard of this before?!”- so i went online to find out the skinny on all things lula’s garden. founder, liraz birnbaum says this all began when she was looking for a unique gift idea. inspired by the growing popularity of succulents, due to the rise of drought awareness in california, lulu’s garden was born.

“I wanted to create a gift that would last and be an ongoing reminder, a gift of life … ”  

lula’s garden supports local farmers by using locally grown succulents from southern california while offering a variety of succulent boxes to choose from. inside each box you find a curated succulent garden with instructions and tools on how to pretty much keep your garden alive. lucky for me, it needs minimal effort and is very hard to kill. (bonus points) take a look at my “unboxing” below and check out lula’s garden for more succulent gift ideas.

 

SXSW: LEO JAMES CONROY

 very excited to be joining these boys at sxsw this year. leo james conroy made his solo debut at sxsw in 2016 but returns to the stage this year with some help from his friends. i’ll be down there shooting some fun content for them so stay tuned for all things sxsw! below are some photos from the live session we recorded last month.

THE PEOPLE. EMILY NG LITTLE

emily ng little is a freelance artist living in los angeles with her husband nicholas, their pup cooter and their cute baby girl lucy. after graduating from college in texas, emily made the move to california and started her career as a production designer, stylist and art director. we met about two years ago working for the same production company. we spent a lot of time together on set and quickly our relationship blossomed into such a sweet friendship. not too long ago emily and her little fam started making these adorable stop motion videos that she shared with her friends and family. i asked emily if i could come by to take some  photos and see where the “magic” happens. i got to spend a full day with the littles and it was such a treat! you can find all the fun babe&bunn creations here.

theblog: it’s sweet that these videos are like a family affair. how does everyone contribute to the task?

emily: “if we had titles mine would probably be the creative director and nicholas would be the technical director. once we decide on what video we want to do, i’ll usually come up with the general idea and story. after we come up with a cohesive idea, i’ll storyboard it and break it down into a props list and start sourcing materials and making everything. when we’re ready to shoot we set up everything in our living room. the camera is actually just my iphone attached to a light fixture in the ceiling- we’re super low budget. {laughs] animating with the baby can be a huge challenge because she doesn’t take direction very well. when we’re done shooting i’ll do most of the editing in photoshop and aftereffects. then we add the music, which is just me playing a really simple tune on the ukulele. when it’s finally all put together, we’ll watch it a couple times then high five and drink a beer and that’s pretty much our entire process.

theblog: what made you want to start doing these stop motion videos?

emily: “well as you know, you actually have an indirect role in the conception of what we’re calling the babe&bunn videos. after moving to la a few years ago i decided to take a step back from contemporary art and began working in the art department for film. after doing a gig at a stop motion studio i realized that’s what i really wanted to start doing, but at the time i was really beginning to flourish as a production designer and stylist. after i got pregnant and had to stop working for a while i decided to use it as an opportunity to make a career shift. it was hard to get back into any sort of studio practice and working on my own stuff, especially trying to find time with a newborn, but then your sister’s wedding video came along. you asked all of us to make a video of ourselves toasting the new couple. the criteria was that we had to be in it, we had to be holding a drink and we had to say “cheers to the conroys”. i suppose it was one of those things where limitations breed creativity. it was so much fun to make and came together so quickly and organically that we wanted to ride the adrenaline and make another. it felt good to work on something again, creatively and in the general sense. it’s all kind of silly, really, but really fun too. we have a youtube channel and everything!”

theblog: did you grow up in a creative/artistic household?

emily: “you know i didn’t. not really. i would say that i grew up watching my parents work with their hands a lot and through that may have acquired traits like dexterity from my mom and meticulousness and high standards from my dad, but creativity was sort of this innate thing in me. my parents said i was very curious as a kid – i couldn’t sit still and had to be fiddling with stuff, figuring objects out. it was the same in school. i pretty much went overboard on any sort of creative project and would spend way too much time and energy -i would even get teased for being such a nerd about it. i was always interested in art and creative writing but i never considered it any sort of career until college. although i knew i wanted to work in the creative field, i was undecided for a while and thought about going into fashion or advertising or interior design. ultimately, i found out that the art school required the least amount of academic courses and at the time, i was really over the traditional structured idea of school, so i decided to apply and got in. it was a bit impulsive, but discovering the contemporary art world was really new and different than my previous academic life- it felt very freeing and full of possibility, like i was finally good at something.”theblog: how’s life as a new mama?

emily:“it’s wonderful. i still find myself completely overwhelmed with the idea that there is now this tiny human being living in our house. everything she does is basically the most impressive thing my husband and i have ever seen. seeing her discover the world and how she takes everything in is really kind of this constantly miraculous thing. time, priorities-everything is different, more urgent. but at the same time there is this casualness to it all, this naturalness to motherhood. i guess i would say that being a new mom is a life full of dualities. it is without a doubt the most challenging and rewarding experience i’ve ever had in my life. i can tell you all the things that makes having a baby difficult-never getting enough sleep, never having personal time to do anything, testing your patience to the limit-but i can’t quite articulate what makes being a parent so particularly amazing. there’s just something about having this little thing who relies on you and loves you so much, who is full of potential, who you made and is made of you. it’s indescribable.”

“i really want her to grow up knowing my creative spirit.”

theblog: do you find creating more fun with a baby?

emily: “ha! well, i will say that it is difficult to do much of anything with a new baby. but my creative self has definitely felt a sense of renewal and the mindset that i’m in now is much more productive and spontaneous. life is less dramatized and nowadays, whenever i have a tiny window of time i’m using it to it’s fullest potential because that time is so rare. lucy has definitely been a great source of inspiration-not just for the videos but as a reason for making. i really want her to grow up knowing my creative spirit. i think all parents must find themselves being more creative. you spend a lot of time just playing. she’s still a bit small, but i’m looking forward to the really fun stuff like making castles out of cardboard boxes and putting some sort of band together with the dog.”

theblog: do you think you’ll keep doing these videos when lucy gets older? 

emily: “you know, i’m really not sure. right now we’re having a lot of fun with them and are planning to continue making them but i feel like they may evolve. once she’s older we’ll have to consider how she’ll want to be involved and if she wants to be involved at all. but i’m also interested in exploring other avenues within this format. i’m just really looking forward to seeing where this all goes.”