Improvised Life

growth study (of ideas?)

One of designer Greg Saul’s Growth Studies.

translucent lego’s, for skyscrapers n’ things

In response to our post about the Lego store, Lydia Wills sent us an email about the translucent Lego skyscrapers made at Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City a few years ago. It’s an illuminating (literally) P.S. to our post on the dream of making monochrome Lego furniture, now that we can…

tacked-up wallpaper (un-permanent + d-i-y)

While surfing around this morning, we stumbled on an interior by photographer Ditte Isager and was struck by the wallpaper, loosely tacked rather than glued, for a whole other, delightfully un-done look. For us, it’s a swell alternative to the often-fussy permanence of wallpaper (and the difficulty of taking it off the wall when we…

the lego store

When we were in Santa Cruz recently, a friend dragged us to a giant shopping mall. In no time, our senses were overwhelmed by TOO MUCH: stuff for sale, Cinnabon and Starbuck’s smells, piped music, people. Stumbling on the new Lego store made it all worth while. We loved its giant wall of help-yourself bins…

our handmade business card

Whenever we need a business card to introduce ‘the improvised life’ or ourselves (with address and phone), we peel off a printed-at-our-local-copy-shop sticker and stick it onto…something. Pamela Hovland dreamed up the idea one day when we were trying to figure out an alt-business card that would say what ‘the improvised life’ is in a flash,…

cool round kitchen tools: knife holder + dish drainer

We were scrolling through The Selby when we spotted these round magnet knife holders in a house in Connecticut. They are a nice sculptural change from the usual foot-long-or-so bar knife holder – the knives look like they’re floating. We hunted them down online here… And then almost immediately we came across this re-thinking of a…

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bang out a chair! (marjin van der poll’s do hit chair)

We find something incredibly compelling about Marjin Van der Poll‘s Do hit chair: hammering a chair out of a metal cube with all one’s strength, testing it out, and then pounding and hammering and testing over and over until it takes shape. The cube is smashed full force with a hammer, until it becomes… something…

open book w test (did tonights video + pix make it to your inbox?)?)

Ever since an alarming number of readers reported NOT getting a video in their July 23rd Daily Email, we’ve been working to fix the glitch. When we found the clip of Martin Van der Poll’s Do hit chair, we thought it would be the perfect test to see if things have resolved. We’re asking subscribers…

a manifesto about dry-cured pig and life

One of the reasons we’re hot to try Boccalone‘s prosciutto on our next trip to San Francisco – aside from the fact that Jake Godby features it as an ice cream flavor at Humphry Slocombe – is the manifesto we found buried deep in Boccalone’s website. We love manifestos because we know the people who write…

prosciutto as resource (w ones to try + a recipe)

We saw some fresh figs in the market the other day and were reminded of the simplest of dishes: prosciutto – ham that’s been carefully dry-cured for 8 to 24 months – and lush, gently-perfumed fruit like figs, melons, peaches, apricots or plumcots in summer…comice pears, fresh or roasted, in fall. We love this classic…

tom sachs’ philosophy of making

A picture of a chair made out of orange-and-white-striped wooden safety barriers that we saw on The Selby led us to discovering Tom Sachs. He’s an artist who makes elaborate recreations of modern icons: masterpieces of engineering and design of one kind or another, from Knoll office furniture to Prada to NASA (like this hilarious video). The all-seams-showing…

thanks + please keep us posted…

…if you don’t find this improvisation/transformation amazing.

how to see what’s there

Although the title of this video is Jessica’s ‘Daily Affirmation’, we see it as a video of a little kid counting blessings. Not only does she list the stuff she has, she really LOVES it. Her fierce, slightly-playing-to-the-camera soliloquy is quite a celebration of the GREAT ordinary. We find that counting blessings, though seemingly New-Agey,…

please alert us if…you don’t find this relaxing

impromptu gift wrap with built-in card

Maria Robledo sent us this snapshot of a gift a houseguest left for her, with very rough-and-tumble improvised wrapping with built-in card. …Wonder what book they gave her, wrapped so straightforwardly and oddly-festively, with clear love. Thanks Maria!

mystery chair (d-i-y ?)

This wondrous chair was posted on Atelier a while back, unattributed. (We searched its roots using TinEye, but didn’t come up with anything). This strangely elegant little sculpture of a chair made us imagine going to the lumber yard – even an art supply store would have this wood – and getting out a hammer…

midnight snack: homemade peanut butter cups

After 10 pm, I am driven by a sweet-tooth so fierce, I never keep actual sweets like ice cream or cookies on hand; I’m afraid of what would happen. Then I find myself foraging through the cupboard, looking for something that will satisfy my craving. When I stumbled on the milk chocolate disks I usually use for…

working at the kitchen table (andrea zittel)

While we were writing about Andrea Zittel the other night, we stumbled on a post from her blog called “Still Working on the Kitchen Table“. The photo shows one of her half-done billboard paintings on the kitchen table, in a living space that is clearly in action, work and living woven together. Even though Zittel…

blog find: daniel hale’s ‘serendipity rising’

We are so happy to have discovered Serendipity Rising, architect Daniel Hale’s blog that is mostly about the evolution of his home in Napa Valley, which seems to be a sort of laboratory for his ideas. The guy loves soft metals like zinc and lead which he cuts and hammers in unusual ways; he transforms salvaged…

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