National Parks & my new interest in Landscapes

ever since I took a class on Land Art, landscapes and representations of landscapes have been transformed for me. Previously, I thought works like the Hudson River School and the like, which glorified the land and therefore the nation, to be rather dull, typical and lacking in depth. It was, however, just my limited perspective. I am now quite inspired by them, looking to the land and to the landscape, as a source of the spiritual, the transcendental, & the sublime. I am reminded of all of my back country hikes with my dad through solitary trails cut off from the everyday chaos of Los Angeles. To him, I am grateful for these trips, travels and escapes where one is alone with the silence of the land. I highly recommend Ken Burn's documentary The National Parks. Inspiring, very inspiring!

Follow the Prophet

This great little gem was on our old laptop that died a terrible dead. Tom recently revived the hard-drive, by pulling it out and putting it in some kind of external hard-dirve backup thing. Among the many poorly written papers and old talks, was this lovely little movie of our Sammy. It requires little introduction itself.

Winter Vacation and the difficulty of starting again

Whinny Post: I had a lovely Christmas vacation--at home with my family and my kids. I have no desire to start writing & working again and that is a bit depressing. Here are some holiday highlights.


Ballet dancing with Stella on a snowy afternoon...


Surprise Spy attach while reading & snuggling a blanket by the fire. . .
(p.s. The gendering going on in these images is certainly not lost on me, but for sentimentalities sake, we're going to kill the critic, skip the formal analysis and just focus on the tenderness for the moment.)

I love my little ones. I'm missing them all over again while I'm at school.

If you can't take the Frankfurt, get out of the kitchen!

I've been reading about how kitchen were redesigned in the 1920s and 1930s by a woman named Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Called the "Frankfurt Kitchen," Schütte-Lihotzky, among many others, were attempting to make a more efficient, more rational domestic space that would be time-saving. All of this push towards greater functionality is based on Industrial Revolutionary models of productivity--think factory line and Fordism. The Frankfurt Kitchen was the result of detailed time-motion studies (mapping how housewives moved and used the kitchen) and was heavily influenced by the railway dining car kitchens of the period. According to Henri Lefevbre, “The kitchen’s spatial transformations affected the movements, postures, and gestures of its users. Only one person at a time could work in its new, efficient space. To minimize the work effort, the repetitive and monotonous model of the factory work performed alone on the assembly line.” Awesome. So, like academic articles, none of these were illustrated. I went onto google images and I found the this lovely gem above this text.

This image in color and in style reminded me of this lovely gem that I have so many fond memories of:

Ok, well, it's a bit of a poor photo given that the kitchen is under construct at the time it was taken but look! We were so very historically accurate in our color selection for our 1930s little home! How very Frankfurt of us! Luckily, this particular kitchen was late 1930s and there was a little more room for a few more bums in the kitchen.

Halloween, TO Cheap or Not to Cheap that is the question?

We, at the Hurtado house, love Halloween. I think its because its a pretty simple holiday which involved eating candy, is only on one day, and doesn't require a large amount of cooking. Simplicity and Sugar--what more could one ask for?!?

Stella, for the forth year running, was a witch. I love classic Halloween staples like the witch. Adorable! Adorable!



2 year Witch Comparison--October 2007 vs. October 2009

Here is Sam, a Jedi! this year. This was the first year that I broke down and just bought store manufactured costumes in advance. McFrugal, cheap, whatever you call it, I typically prefer just coming up with something around the house and calling it a costume.

Last year, however, ended up not working well and we learned our lesson. In 2008, Sam dressed in all black with one black glove in a vain and yet failed attempt at Luke Skywalker. The no weapons rule at school really did this one in. Stella, actually started off as a scarecrow in old overalls and one of sammy's shirts and real corn husky that we grew in our garden. She ended up looking raggamuffin and unloved. When the first trick-or-treaters knocked on our door and said, "Oh, the old ever trusted Hobo costume! I love it!" and then the wife swiftly corrected him, "No, Ron! I think that's just what she's wearing. I don't think she in a costume." I knew we had not succeeded in properly costuming our children that yet. I quickly sent Stellie upstairs to don the ever trusty witch costume. Funny, I don't have any pictures from that Halloween!

Poor Souls!


Sam's 2 year Halloween Comparison
2007 vs. 2009
In a much more successfully thrown together pirate costume which included worn out shorts of his, a striped shirt of mine, Tom's belt and a sword we had around the house.

The Digital Age and my Butterfingers

What is great about digital cameras:
1. You can see the picture right away
2. You can store of these great images right there on your camera

The hazards however:
1. If you are like me, seeing the pictures right away, means that I never develop any of them--ever. Cheap-o lame mom!
2. if you don't download images to your computer you can quickly erase them in a crunch without thinking about it.

The pictures of Stella's birthday party would fall under the hazardous cautionary tale category.

Pictures of Her beautiful butterfly winged friends, butterfly cake, and butterfly art project are all gone, gone and gone forever. The fleeting moment of childhood meant to be memorexed and frozen through photograph was erased in a moment of sudden urgency. Roland Barthes posited that photographs are in effect ghosts because the referent they capture is already gone, already not three, already moved on. Well, Barthes, how I wish I had those ghosts still around to remind me.

What was worth replacing these priceless stills of stella's three year oldness?


Stupid pictures of the break-in at the 4-plex. Stupid thief. stupid me for erasing them. Poor Stella. It was such a lovely party.

As a piece offering from such a short mother, I offer this song written by Paul McCartney to his little Stella

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wpr2IEjVSg

Images I've been working through this Year

Strange International Airport Montello. Google it. Its a trip.
Trevor Paglen. Had the oppertunity to meet him this semester. Super cool spy "black world" photography. Check out http://www.paglen.com/pages/media.html to see him on the Colbert Report.


Kelly Brooks. Love her work. Does this really cool maps of kitchen traffic patterns.

Among these, I'm still sorting out my thesis research. But, it's been a pretty cool semester thus far.

Short Mother

Yesterday Stella told me that she didn't love me. When I pushed, she insisted that I was not tall enough, "Only Tom is tall, so I only love Tom." Alas!

Goblin Valley

Stella's Birthday Party Invitation

Sam's Seventh

Sam turned seven. SEVEN! This year we planned a Jedi Training Party awarding all of the young Jedis with lightsabers--after they of course past the training with push ups, sit ups, obstacle courses with metrorites and storms of bullets (bubbles) from strom troppers and the like. Once trained, the evil Darth Vader (sweet Tom always taking a beating from the kids) arrived and they all pummeled him to the ground. It was lovely. Stella, oddly and gratefully, slept though the entire event.

We are quite happy to have this little troll in our lives. What a sweet little boy he is. We love you Sammy.

The end of a Grand Era

Stella, the great Escapist!



Almost a year ago, Stella figured out how to climb out of her crib. We quickly slurged on a $80.00 crib tent in order to continue to contain her a few months longer. We censored any references that suggested entrappment. We renamed it a more positive "princess bed." This had a lulling effect for about six wonderful months of sleepfilled nights. HOWEVER! The other day, I heard her upstairs during her nap. Somehow from within the tent, she pushed her entire crib to the door of her room in order to get out. This is one determined (and inventive) little girl.



I am most convinced now that we have only a limited number of lingering days of solid containment. The tent with its twenty safety pins can not hold her insurgency for long.

She is forever the great escapist!

Beautiful Little Stella looking Coy.

HOORAY FOR CAA!

LA with the Girls.
I must admit that going to the Getty with Art Historians is significantly more enjoyable than with the little ones.

Just in case you wanted to make cookies...

Cheers to our future pastry Chef!

Guess Who Learned to Pedal and Ride a bike?

I can't believe how big this little baby butterfly is!

Tom's Show

Tom's freakin cool show. You guys should all fly out and come.

Catfish, Amazons and Showers

The Weekly Cute Roundup

Sam and Stellie were showering together this evening and when Sam decided he was done & turned off the shower. Stella was not impressed and a little confused at the sudden lack of water. She shouted, "Oh no, Mom! The shower is out of batteries! we have to fix it!"


Though more indicative of her personality than her plumbing troubleshooting skills, is Stella, the Amazon. She refused to wear a dress today to church, insisting on pants. While gathering our things, she ripped of her shoes, ran outside, climbed to the top of the swing set and started screaming a tribal yell for Independence. She then proceeded to swing as high as she could with her head tossed all the way back. When she was ready, she came back in and put on a dress and grabbed her doll and went to church. What a gal!


Sam was sent to bed at 8. At ten, he shouted that he was so very very hungry. We went up there to put a stop to all of his fatigued shannaigans when he explained that he was so hungry, he was as hungry as a catfish. Mmm... This inventiveness earned him a slice of bread. He is now always...sleepy as a catfish, mad as a catfish.

Thus, this week Catfishes, Amazons and battery-operated showers have all become very very big.

Sundays at Grandmas

check out Kaer's blog for more extensive footage--dearandbeloved.blogspot.com

Mary (holy cow!) Kelly

I'm going to a conference in LA on Wednesday with several other grad students. The conceptual feminist artist Mary Kelly will be giving a FREE lecture and I am over the moon. Her extensive five year project called the Post Partum Document is one of my favorite pieces of all time--one that I spent several months writing, researching and trying to understand. Among many other things, the work addresses the labor of mothering, by documenting feeding schedules, diaper stains, portions of lovie blankets, and the slow introduction of language. Her work, like motherhood, is challenging, complicated and completely fasciating. I love her, love her! I'm star struck at the thought of hearing her speak. Thank you Tom for taking the extra shift for me to have this wonderful oppertunity.