infinity and beyond

since moving to new york i have really enjoyed making semi-annual weekend trips to washington DC. it is always so much fun to visit my friend emily there and to experience the art and culture and (most of all) food of another city. i love DC and hope to never stop making these frequent visits.

it's our tradition to eat brunch and beignets at founding farmers, which is so delicious every time. emily and i kicked off our saturday there and then headed to the hirshhorn museum, where we had tickets for the yayoi kusama retrospective. you have probably seen photos of kusama's infinity mirror rooms on instagram. i looooove kusama. if you're unfamiliar, here is her fascinating wikipedia page. she is an 88-year-old japanese artist with an incredibly varied and impressive almost-70-year career. her early work in the abstract expressionist, pop art, and performance art movements was very influential to artists including andy warhol and yoko ono. her more contemporary work uses color and pattern in sculpture and installation pieces that are very joyful, whimsical, and even psychedelic. she has become very well-known for her infinity mirrored rooms that are beautiful and transcendent to experience in person.

yayoi kusama: infinity mirrors is a retrospective of her work and includes six of these infinity rooms. it was probably the most fun art exhibition i have ever attended. i couldn't stop smiling the entire time. i studied kusama in my modern art and feminist art classes at BYU and had wanted to see her work in person for years, so i really savored the experience. you only get about 30 seconds inside the mirror rooms, but stepping inside is unlike anything i've ever experienced. it was such a treat to be there. i love that kusama frequently uses pumpkins as a motif in her works (the pumpkin room is called "all the eternal love i have for the pumpkins" and all the titles of her artworks are really endearing). the use of pumpkins was inspired by her family's farming heritage and i love that because i have a family heritage of pumpkin farming. so cute. the last room of the exhibit is called the "obliteration room" and when you enter you are given a sheet of dot stickers that you can place anywhere you like. the room and its furnishings started out completely white and become obliterated by dots and color. i loved it. if you have a chance to go before the exhibit ends mid-may, do it!

after the hirshhorn, we went to see beauty & the beast at the charming uptown theater. for dinner we ate at medium rare, which is a prix fixe steak and frites restaurant we'd both wanted to try for a while. oh em gee, it was amazing. any place where you eat your giant plate of steak and french fries and they come fill it up with more steak and fries? OKAY BY ME. on sunday, we went to church and then i met up with my new friend melissa for tacos at district taco. that place is so tasty and and it was really fun to make an internet friend a real-life friend. as always, the weekend went by way too fast, but it was pretty much perfect. thanks for the memories, DC! i'm a big fan.

washington weekend

i managed recently to find round trip bus fare to D.C. for $1 (hashtag boltbus VIP), so that meant another trip down to visit my friend emily. we had such a fun weekend. my first order of business was getting a sweet pork salad at cafe rio, but other delicious highlights included thomas sweet ice cream, baked and wired, &pizza, founding farmers (those beignets tho), and bluebuck pancakes at eastern market. my diet starts tomorrow.

i also checked out the library of congress, botanic garden, phillips collection, and hirshhorn museum. all of them are free and pretty great. i was excited at the hirshhorn to see quite a few works i learned about in my feminist art class, including the shirin neshat exhibit and barbara kruger installation. the photo above of the busts is actually "lick and lather" by janine antoni (1993-94), and i was so psyched to see it in person. they are self-portraits made of chocolate and soap and antoni actually licked the chocolate and washed the soap in the bath to wear away the features and comment on femininity and physical appearance. so amazing. i love them.

we went to see everest and pawn sacrifice (i recommend both) and it made me miss when emily and i were roommates and all we did was watch movies together. also she lent me her copy of into thin air by jon krakauer because as soon as we got out of the everest movie i wanted to read it. it's amazing so far.

but my favorite things we did all weekend were definitely visiting the national zoo and riding bikes around at night. i am obsessed with the clouded leopard at the national zoo. it's the prettiest animal i've ever seen and SO CUTE. we rented bikes from the capital bikeshare and rode all around the monuments and the national mall. i hadn't ridden a bike in forever and it was the best. we rode during the day too but nighttime was amazing because the streets and sidewalks were so empty and quiet and the monuments are stunning all lit up. it was so much fun. new york is number one in my heart, but D.C., you are up there. be back soon.

chicago

these photos are from all the way back in february. in the middle of the semester i had the chance to visit chicago and attend the annual conference of the college art association. i am so glad i went. i had never really visited chicago before and it had been at the top of my list for a long time. it was a great trip because i loved getting to attend conference sessions with my art history friends, but i also had a lot of freedom and flexibility, so i was able to explore a lot of the city on my own. if you know me, it's probably not surprising to you that i made trying chicago's best donuts a priority and visited no less than three donut shops during my trip. i also loved the art institute, which has a really incredible collection and is of course featured in this classic scene from ferris bueller's day off. i loved seeing american gothic in person and those stained glass windows by chagall are amazing. my other favorite thing was anish kapoor's cloudgate aka the bean. seriously, so awesome. what was not awesome was walking around in front of the bean and asking a dozen different tourists to take my photo before i finally got one that was decent (the story of traveling alone haha). i had such a great time in chicago, so i thought i'd share some things to do below! a lot of these i owe to the wonderful alex steele, a friend of lauren's who sent me the greatest and most comprehensive email guide to chicago before my trip. thanks, alex! here are my recommendations (most of them are food... sorry not sorry)

THINGS I DID:

art institute of chicago—do not miss the art institute! so fun to explore and see such familiar artworks

john hancock observatory—it's cheaper and faster to just get dessert in the restaurant at the top and you get the same view!

millenium park/the bean—great photo opps, anish kapoor is awesome

frank lloyd wright's home and studio—i highly recommend this tour, esp. if you love architecture

chicago theatre—walk by to get the iconic photo, it's right by magnolia bakery and do-rite donuts

mag mile—aka michigan avenue, best-known shopping area, fun to wander

madewell—my favorite store, this one was in a really nice shopping area

THINGS I ATE:

glazed & infused—best donuts i tried, great selection of flavors and you can sit down and  eat inside

do-rite donuts—also awesome donuts, mostly i never met a donut i didn't like

doughnut vault—had the longest line and they were sold out of some flavors but it was worth it

jeni's splendid ice creams—so worth the train ride to get there, my fave was the buckeye pb

magnolia bakery—skip the cupcakes and get the banana pudding

lou malnati's—authentic chicago deep dish, the pizza was good but the bruschetta was the best

portillo's hot dogs—popular chicago dogs, but i've heard hot doug's is way better

epic burger—great burgers and shakes, comparable to shake shack (my fave)

roti mediterranean grill—fast casual mediterranean, was great for a quick lunch

potbelly—sandwich chain, another good option for a cheap and quick breakfast or lunch

bongo room—amazing brunch, humongous portions, so glad i went here

THINGS I DIDN'T DO/EAT BUT OTHERS RECOMMENDED:

sears (willis) tower

architecture river tour

wrigley field tour

cubs or white sox game

museum of contemporary art

field museum of natural history

bucktown/wicker park

lake shore drive

beaches

hot doug's (i think they're closing soon!)

grange hall burger bar

black dog gelato

southport grocery

xoco

star of siam

pastoral

big star

rpm italian

grass fed

homeslice

little goat diner
dmk burger bar
city dough
bang bang pie shop
sprinkles cupcakes

hope this is helpful! chicago is a really cool place.

field trippin'

last weekend i went on a field trip for my art business class. we drove to kanab for a conference on the business of art and we had a great time! i love the girls in my class and we had so much fun together. we got excused from our friday classes, so we left that morning and we stopped in zion national park on our way. it was so beautiful! i've driven through southern utah before but i haven't really spent any time there so it was really neat to take our time and stop on the way down. the red rocks are gorgeous. i want to go back and hike sometime. when we got to kanab we ate burgers and shakes and went back to our hotel to watch movies. there isn't much to see in kanab, so we just hung out together. our conference ended up being a bit of a letdown (mostly because it was geared more towards artists than towards others in the art world) but we still had a really good time. on the way home, we stopped at artist maynard dixon's house and studio. they were these really cool, beautifully decorated log cabins. i would've moved right in. the rest of the way home we ate pringles and beef jerky and made our professor listen to beyoncé and taylor swift and maybe even a little cheetah girls, so i'd say it was a good road trip!