Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Locks of Love

My friend Hannah, did a wonderful post on how her sister donated hair to Locks of Love. Locks of love is an organization that makes wigs for children that do not have hair. They ask for hair donations and accept hair that is 10 inches or longer.

After Hannah's post, all the girls in my family wanted to donate hair. We measured every girls hair in my family and the only person with long enough hair is my little sister Hannah.  Since my sister Hannah is only five, we had explain to her why she needed to cut her hair.  We tied her hair in a low ponytail and then my mom cut it right above the hair band.  Afterwards, my grandmother trimmed her hair to make it even.  My sister's hair is now very short and cute.
























Thank you "big" Hannah for the great idea.


Do you think you might want to donate your hair?

Does anyone have any other ideas of things we can do to help our community?

Sunday, May 8, 2011

The Getty Center



Maze
During winter break, my mom took my sisters, my brother, and me to the Getty museum.  There were many different paintings and sculptures to see and learn about, but we only had time to see just a a few of them.  We also strolled around the garden which  had many different flowers, and one big cool maze. 



Getty Center

The Getty Center











The Getty Center trust purchased 750 acres of the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains in 1983.  The Getty Center opened to the public in December 1997.   The museum is built on top of a tall mountain and the only way to get to the Center is by tram. The view from the top was gorgeous.  We could see the entire city, from downtown Los Angeles, to the beach.  It was such a clear day, that we even saw Catalina Island. Since it rained the day before, we were able to see snow capped mountains in the distance. 



View of Los Angeles

View of Los Angeles














At the museum, we took a docent guided tour of the four pavilions starting from the more recent paintings and finishing with the oldest collection.  Here are the collection  highlights that the docent pointed out. 


Irises

The first painting we saw, was an 1889 oil painting called Irises by a Dutch painter named Vincent Van Gogh.  Vincent Van Gogh painted this painting a few months after he cut off his ear, and the townspeople took him to the hospital.  While he was recuperating from mental illness, he painted the Irises.  This is the only painting by Van Gogh in the entire Getty museum. 









In the same time period, we saw a couple of pastel paintings by a French painter named Edgar Degas.  We saw two of his paintings, both of dancers.  Degas often went to the opera and he painted their performances.  The two paintings we saw were called Waiting and Taking a Bow



Waiting

Taking a Bow






















Portrait of the Sisters

The docent then showed us an 1821 oil painting by a French painter named Jacques Luis David called Portrait of the Sisters Zenaide and Charolotte.   The sisters are nieces of the famous warier, Napoleon Bonaparte.  When David painted the portrait, Charolotte was fourteen and Zenaide was eighteen. The painting was sent out to men to let them know that Zenaide was ready to get married.












Next, the docent showed us two paintings by the Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn.  The first was an oil 1632 painting called Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Gold Trimmed Cloak.  No one knows who the girl is, but people think she is a relative or someone who worked for Rembrandt.  The same girl is seen in a second painting sitting on top of the bull. This painting was also painted in 1632 and is called The Abduction of Europa.  The Greek God Zeus, transformed himself into a bull, stole a women called Europa, and took her to the city of Crete.     




The Abduction of Europa

Portrait of a Girl

















 Then, we went into another gallery and saw an oil 1530 painting by the Italian artist Dosso Dossi called The Allegory of Fortune.   An allegory, is a story that represents something and in this painting everything is about fortune. The women represents fortune, and she  is sitting on a bubble.  The bubble represents that fortune can change at anytime just like a bubble can burst at anytime. The women is also holding a horn filled with food to show all the fortune she can bring. The man represents chance, and is holding lottery tickets for a chance to win big.  Just like the allegory, this painting also went through a lot of changes in fortune. It was first found at a flea market and purchased for a small amount of money. The buyer strapped the 7 foot painting to the roof of his car and brought it to Christie's auction house in New York City. The experts recognized that it was a famous painting and the buyer sold the painting for millions of dollars.  




The Coronation
 Finally, the docent took us to the final pavilion to see really old iconic paintings. We saw an altar piece probably created for a small chapel in 1390 called The Coronation of the Virgin with Saints  The gold color on the painting was made from very thin layers of gold called gold leaf.  What is interesting is that all the faces look the same, but the halos have the names of the saints.








After the docent tour, we went to see French furniture from the year 1748-1770.  Here are some of the photos that we took.

Bed

Bed







French Room
 
Tapestry
















We also went to have some fun at the children's center and made some masks. Don't we look scary?





Finally, we had lunch in the garden.   At the bottom of the garden there was a flowering maze of 400 red azalea plants.



















What paintings or furniture did you like the best?