project + reno lesson: embrace the unexpected……… things won’t go as planned

About a year ago, we wrote a post called “On Things ‘Not Looking Good While You’re Working on Them”, about the difficult – and often ongoing – “middle” of a project when things haven’t come together. We were heartened by artist John Currin‘s revelation about the creative process: the ONLY way to make thing anything…

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we’re back!

(Video link here.) Moving home and office has taken us longer than we imagined. It’s taken a full week to get things up-and-running in our sublime new space…to LAND. Thanks for bearing with and for many messages of goodwill. With thanks to Film Noir Johnny for the perfectly-timed video. Related posts: sneak peek: improvised life’s…

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we’re moving!! (back next week)

The Internet and phone are turned off in our old place; we’re camping amidst boxes. Needless to say, posting has been erratic…we spent 15 hours yesterday at the new space wrangling electricians, Fios guys, handiman, rug delivery. We’re both overwhelmed and excited by the impending move to new digs, ‘the improvised life’s ongoing work-in-progress, a…

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book giveaway: fridge pickles via ‘hip girls guide’…

Soon summer will be here, bringing with it a crop of cucumbers (and countless other vegetables) just waiting to be pickled. But for those who are intimidated by the process of water-bath canning for shelf storage (or who just want a crunchy fresh pickle!) there is an easy solution: spices, water, vinegar, salt, and two…

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sneak peek: improvised life’s new space + our cool optical illusion design solution

I thought it would be fun to give a sneak peak of the new space I’ve been renovating – the secret project that has run me ragged for months. It will be a sort of laboratory for many ideas we want to explore on ‘the improvised life’. Although it will probably never be ;finished;, this…

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holton rower’s catalytic art (plywood + 50 gallons of paint + big imagination)

Last week we went to the opening of an exhibition of artist Holton Rower’s paintings, made by pouring gallons of vividly colored paints onto plywood forms. They are on display at The Hole in NYC, an immense space that Rower’s monumental work fills with reverberating color and energy. The paintings are made of humble materials:…

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d-i-y instant color block tablecloths

On Ikea’s impossible-to-translate blog, Livet Hemma, we found this image of the two-toned fabrics European Ikeas are selling. We’re not crazy about the color scheme but love the idea:  why not overlap vividly-colored tablecloths or large swathes of cotton or linen to make a color block table?  Unhemmed ends are CHIC. Related posts: found: frosta/alvar…

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the possibilities of folded paper

The great DVDP devised a gif out of origami artist Jun Mitani’s flickr photostream: a lovely reminder of the possibilities inherent in simple sheets of paper… …which reminded us of Between the Folds, a wondrous video clip we posted about origami’s cosmic potential. Related posts: origami’s cosmic potential (de)creation (rhino origami rewind) triangle letter how-to (mail for free)…

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how do you know when to take the leap?

It’s well known that one of our favorite visual themes is people leaping – an obvious metaphor for “taking a leap” into new territory, work, projects, endeavors that we might have thought fearful…life. We came across an interesting trove recently on Retronaut, of New Yorkers in the 1890’s. Although there are some spectacular leaps…

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making a table garden with cheap potted bulbs

We written a couple of times about the big transformation of pots of inexpensive potted bulbs when you tilt the whole root ball out of its plastic pot and into a wide ceramic bowl. But we never showed what actually happens over the course of a week as the tightly-closed bulbs open and bloom. So…

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