We’ve often viewed ourselves are being computer-like at times, especially when information overload occurs, causing the definite need to SHUT DOWN, which we usually do by taking a nap. When we reboot, it’s usually with a clearer head. Graphic designer Victoria Siemer, who often goes by the moniker Witchoria, has created Human Error, a series of emotional computer…
Read More
We recently stumbled in this image of French fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld’s 1970’s Paris bathroom which interests us for its vision of bathroom as parlour or even work space. It includes a sitting area with Panton chairs around a mirror table by the tub. The room is filled with mirrors and posters. We love seeing…
Read More
The quest for a restful night’s sleep can feel like an impossible dream, particularly for urban apartment dwellers or those who share tight living quarters and a noisy town. How to shut off the world – and the kitchen – to grab some privacy and nourishing shut-eye to help maintain emotional and mental balance, can be an…
Read More
This past week, after we accompanied a dear friend through a dire emergency in the hospital, we witnessed the many ways that friends and strangers “lent a hand” with what seemed like an overwhelming amount to handle. Neighbors put groceries in our fridge, friends brought dinner to the hospital, some, like Maria Robledo, sent us images that…
Read More
If this gif doesn’t show up, click HERE to see it full size. Televandalist created this inspired “GIF of a Vine of a video of a flipbook of a GIF of a video of a roller coaster”. It was created using Flipbookit. It is exactly how we felt last week during our friend’s hospital emergency. Seeing…
Read More
Our old friends from the food world Frances Boswell and Dana Gallagher have teamed up to create a lovely labor-of-love blog called Kitchen Repertoire. Their simple mandate is a breath of fresh air: We are 20 year veterans of the magazine industry; a food editor and a photographer. We live real lives with kids and…
Read More
During the week we spent looking after a friend in the hospital, we found ourselves applying design thinking to many little ways to make our friend comfortable. Like many prototypes, the phone table we’d devised needed tweaking after it had actually been put to use. We asked ourselves: What problem do we need to solve? and then What can we use to solve this problem?.
Read More
This image of trees that appear to be unexpectedly cracking through the deck, got us thinking about the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi and modernism, and just how the two relate.
Read More
Last Friday morning, we were blasted out of our normal routine by a call from a friend in dire straits. After a harrowing ER visit and 6 nonstop days at the hospital, we are are delighting in the ordinary joys we missed: the miraculous everyday. The scent of linden is in the air. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll collect linden blossoms and leaves to make some tea.
Read More
(Video link HERE.) I was bogged down today in a creative funk, head-buttingly blocked, wandering in a dark wood, wrestling with a component for a necklace that is carved from clear, rock crystal so that it seemed, well… simply invisible. How do you showcase something invisible? I recalled something I’d read in an interview long ago with…
Read More
After we wrote about Holton Rower’s ingenious invisible magnetic wall for easily displaying art and photographs, a reader alert us to this iteration of a magnetic wall panel. Luis Pons Design lab created magnetic wallpaper i.e. a magnetic panel that could be afixed to a wall. It allows anyone to move a fine metal mesh over the panel…
Read More
In the midst of our recent hospital siege, we received a number of very cool emails from friends and readers. This one from Ellen Silverman: So often we forget to look up, especially in a congested public space. This afternoon as we were saying goodbye to Luca in terminal 4 at JFK, Josh happened to…
Read More
A couple of days ago, a dear friend called early in the morning having difficulty breathing and asking us to meet him at the imaging center the doctor advised. The results of the CT-scan had us accompanying our friend to the Emergency Room where we spent nine hours navigating his serious distress with a cellphone that…
Read More
It is peak pea season and we can’t think of a better, easier, more delightful way to eat them than this simple recipe from Canal House Cooking Volume No. 3: Winter & Spring. Unshucked peas-in-their-pods are cooked in a hot cast-iron skillet until blistered. Then you just salt and eat: the perfect hors d’oeuvre for a summer…
Read More
Artist Robert Dolan intended to make a tee shirt for a young man with leukemia who is now in remission. He made a history of his creative process for a grammar school art class to show the twists, turns, and often messy failures that he went through to arrive at…Plan B. Not a tee shirt,…
Read More
These charming little structures got us thinking about beach shelters. Of late we’ve seen some pretty chic, pricey ones, like Sombrilla Beach Tent for $189. It’s based on a simple, classic structure, one of many you can make yourself.
Read More
One of the many details we love in sculptor Constantino Nivola’s “outdoor rooms” are the walls he erected to define space and make into artworks. We’re crazy for this tree wall sculpture, as well as his wall paintings, including the Solarium. Hmmm. Wonder how they are made? Of course, we tried to figure it out, hoping…
Read More
Saul Steinberg drew his imaginings of what goes on in a person’s daydreams, and David Shrigley made a list* of the kinds of things that can come from that. Shonda Rhimes tells how to get those imaginings OUT of your head, and into the world.
Read More
Sorry, this gif just doesn’t want to stay published on our site. Just click here to make it pop out. Somebody spent a lot of creative thought, time, cardboard and energy making these seven seconds happen… Amazement! via Holton Rower via i.imgur.com
Read More
We’ve long admired this rather visionary bathroom of some friends. They planned their bathroom to accommodate what most bathrooms do in an ad hoc way: house reading material and intellectual pursuits. That got us checking out other iterations of this idea.
Read More