An afternoon at UCLA

After our visit to The Plant Provocateur we set off for the UCLA campus and the Fowler Museum.

The Fowler was having an exhibition, Disguise: Masks & Global African Art, that Andrew wanted to see. It was a good one, and the museum has free admission, gotta love that. This is the courtyard at the Fowler. Since I tend to move through art museums faster than he does it was nice to be able to step outside and get some fresh air and sunshine.

This piece, The Invisible Man by Zina Saro-Wiwa, was used in advertisements for the exhibition. Thus I'd seen it around town prior to seeing it in person, I must say I absolutely loved it...

"The Invisible Man is a neo-Ogoni mask created by Zina Saro-Wiwa. Inspired by the newer “Ogele style” masquerade masks that have started appearing in Ogoniland in the late 1980s, the mask is one that depicts the men that have disappeared in Zina’s life through death or through their own design. Brother, father, lovers and illusive Ogele dancers feature on the Janus-faced mask. The black and white face representing the sadness of loss, the lined pink face the anger associated with abandonment. Worn by women only." (s ource)

Another part of the show featured these Sowei masks...

And then there was this...

Finished at the Fowler we walked back across campus to something we'd spotted on the way in.

Oh ya!...who knew? There's a botanical garden at UCLA!

The Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden is a "living museum, having special collections designed to assist the undergraduate teaching mission at UCLA and to augment the capability for research on campus. MEMBG serves as a long-term repository for unusual plants, a refugium for biodiversity. This facility offers its educational content to the campus community, residents of Los Angeles, and visitors from around the world to enhance learning about plants and promote greater appreciation for relevance of plants to society." Mildred herself sounds like quite the force, read about her here.

I wonder why you never see Eucalyptus blooms sold as cut flowers? Perhaps they don't last? They're certainly beautiful.

Wowsa!

December in Los Angeles, what an experience.

One would I gladly give up snow and Christmas trees for.

That street below is the one we'd traveled earlier, when we spotted the garden.

Admission into the garden was also free. I am impressed UCLA!

Over on the garden's website there's a list of campus plants, ones found on the "400 acre UCLA campus outside the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden."

And lest you forget you're in L.A. there's a view of the buildings on Wilshire Boulevard, just a few blocks away (at least I think that's what we're looking at!).

I've wandered into off-limits growing areas plenty of times, so I was interested to see what was going to happen to Andrew as he causally strolled back there, unaware...

Yep, before hopping on his cute get-away-cart this fellow told Andrew to leave "this area is not open to the public" and then locked the gate behind him.