Maria Kalman recently arrived in our Inbox with an invitation to buy a signed and numbered edition she created. It’s called “Don’t Think too Much” and it has much to say on the subject and how not to… (think too much)
Read MoreMaira Kalman On Wandering, Trees, Obituaries, Museums, Not Knowing, and Falling in Love with Small Things
There are so many compelling ideas in On Being’s Krista Tippett’s long interview with author and illustrator Maira Kalman, that we made a selection, with images from past posts….
Read MoreWords to Begin or End the Week (Maira Kalman)
This week in the life of artist Maira Kalman has some very important reminders for any week to come…
Read MoreMaira Kalman’s NYC Home Laboratory and Her Dream Place
Taking a virtual house tour of designer Maira Kalman’s apartment “laboratory” gave us some great ideas, including a way to discover our dream house.
Read MoreMaira Kalman: Grateful grateful grateful
The Wall Street Journal has a series called “My Week” and we can think of no better to way to start off our week than a week in the life of artist Maira Kalman.
Read MoreMaira Kalman’s Favorite Things (What are Yours?)
Maira Kalman’s strange little book My Favorite Things is an enduring beauty on our morning reading pile, a meditation really, on the ways rooms, hats, shoes, things of all sorts, resonate in our lives, inside and out.
Read MoreMaira Kalman on Daydreaming, Eccentricity, and Not Knowing What is Going On
(Vido link HERE.) Portraits in Creativity is a series of short-form videos by renown creative director Gael Towey about the bravery and processes of artists and artisans. Who could better start off the series than the great, wise, observant Maira Kalman? Kalman’s drawing and writing gets to the essence of “not knowing what is going on” and celebrates…
Read Moremaira kalman’s real apartment and her fantasy one
In the new Spring Design Issue of New York Magazine, artist Maira Kalman talks to longtime neighbor and friend Isaac Mizrahi about how Tel Aviv has influenced her New York apartment. The two images of Kalman’s apartment shows a warm, personal, comfortable, loose space, very different from the stark interiors of so many other designer’s…
Read Moredealing with uncertainty, from zen habits + maira kalman
Zen Habits recently published the very useful Finding Peace with Uncertainty, one of our favorite subjects. It made us go back and leaf through the great Maira Kalman’s wonderful book, The Principles of Uncertainty. We clipped this image of her crossed-out musings thinking, for sure, she naturally applies Zen Habits’ 8 practices… Try something…
Read Moremaira kalman on life, death, work, love…
(Video link here.) We can’t think of a better way to celebrate this lovely ordinary day than with this video of the great Maira Kalman – whose remarkable books are a blend of images and words into vivid stories – giving her two cents on what it is to be human. She covers a lot…
Read More‘food rules’ made delicious by maira kalman
We have a lot of respect for writer Michael Pollan’s writing about the food industry, and heard that his 2009 book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual presented a sane approach to eating. But we’ve been so bombarded over the years with”scientifically proven” strictures about what to cook and eat that were later proven WRONG, that our…
Read More“can do” (maira kalman)
Here’s one of our favorite pictures from “Can Do”, a riff about the nature of invention from the great Maira Kalman’s New York Times Blog “And the Pursuit of Happiness“. It’s of the inventor Nikola Tesla “who talked to pigeons and worked with electricity while calmly reading a book.” We see it as a picture…
Read Moremaira kalman on invention and ingenuity (and napping)
The brilliant Maira Kalman has done another wonderfully illustrated op-ed for her periodic blog “And the Pursuit of Happiness” at the New York Times. This time, it’s about the nature in invention, starting with Benjamin Franklin … He believed in doing good. He made charts and had daily goals… ….He saw a dirty street and created…
Read MoreHead, Heart (For Cara de Silva)
Reeling from the news that our friend Cara de Silva had passed away, we cast about for solace for ourselves and for her close friends whom we knew were grief-struck, missing their daily conversations with her. Into our hands jumped Maira Kalman’s wonderful book “My Favorite Things”, opening to this by Lydia Davis…
Read MoreOde to Eggs (Let Me Count the Ways…)
Although a lot of people complain about the price of eggs, we think they are a bargain. One or two can still make a mighty meal for under two bucks. And there are ENDLESS ways to cook treat them. To spark egg possibility-thinking, we reprise our edit of Renee Schettler Rossi’s “All Hail the Mighty Egg” that appeared in in Leite’s Culinaria some years ago: inspired ideas fueled by memory, passion and hunger.
Read MoreThe “o my god at the heart” of Trees
Some remarkable writings and images describing intimate encounters with trees got us thinking about what really happens when we sit inside one, climb one, sit in its embrace…
Read MoreHere’s How to See Everything Ever Posted on Improvised Life Over 10 Years
If you’re in need of illumination NOW, here’s how to scroll through everything ever posted on Improvised Life.
Read MoreHow to Do Almost Nothing on Memorial Day Weekend
Memorial Day weekend is the real start of summer in our minds. And our minds are full of ideas for simple pleasures and ramblings, whether home or away.
Read MoreOur Practice for the Last Week of the Year
We take the quiet last week of the year between Christmas and New Years to relax, unhook from many normal routines, and reflect on the year that has passed so we can envision the New.
Read MoreSara Berman’s Closet: The Tenderness of Creating Your Own Life
A tiny yet extraordinary exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum is evidence that we “are free to change at any age”.
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