When she turned 61, Anne Lamott decided to “take the opportunity to write down every single thing I know, as of today.” It is a seriously good distillation of decades of living from the author of Bird by Bird.
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Words 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…
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A Spider’s Lessons about Loss, Resilience and Pressing On, Regardless
In shock after the loss of a beloved tree, Susan Dworski found herself watching a spider at work on her web. It cast her loss in a different light altogether, and yielded an unexpected shift of view.
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Solar Lanterns Make Lunar Magic, Sensual Bubbles and, in the end, Stars
One of the best ways we know to create outdoor lighting magic in warm months are with Shoji Solar Lanterns…
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Simple Ways to Create Private Space with Fabric Room Dividers and ‘Slung Cloths’
The quest for a calming, private space can feel like an impossible dream, particularly for those who share tight living quarters. Here are some ideas…
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Get Your Financial Act Together with Mr. Money Mustache
We’ve discovered that, even with our very creative, non-linear artist’s brain, we can learn to manage our financial ecosystem IF we have the right teacher. Here’s a good place to start.
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Edward Gorey on the Unexpected in Creative Projects + Morning Mantra
When Susan Dworski sent us this hunk of Edward Gorey brilliance, she also shared her own morning mantra.
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A Cheap Chic Black Bag to Rival Ikea’s and Balenciaga’s Tote
After the designers at fashion house Balanciaga knocked off Ikea’s iconic big blue 99-cent tote (in leather for $2,145), frequent contributor Susan Dworski jumped into the fray with a chic, cheap black bag that we hacked to perfection.
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Hunger-Crazed Cooks Confess 50 Ways to Eat Eggs
When there is nothing in the pantry, there is almost always the egg. Here are 50 ways to cook them from hunger crazed food people and Leite’s Culinaria. Just to spark you imagination.
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This Shining Moment in the NOW
There’s a sweet hiatus between summer and fall in the few weeks after Labor Day when the sky promises to be blue forever and only a dozen, drifting, saffron leaves hint of soon-to-be barren branches. Before moving to a ramshackle farm tucked away on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest last year, seasons were meaningless. Here, Nature knocks and you listen…
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Blackberry August: Island Harvest Crumble with Poem
Blackberries are considered both a scourge and a blessing. They grow anywhere and everywhere, bristling with thorns, invading civilized gardens, threatening to obliterate freeway on-ramps. But in August, if you see a car pulled off the side of the road, you can bet everyone’s piled out to gather wild blackberries to eat out-of-hand and transform in the kitchen.
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Wonders and Possibilities Hiding in Plain Sight
In Fly By Night, artist Duke Riley trained 2,000 pigeons to fly above the Brooklyn Navy Yard at dusk with tiny lights attached to their legs. The performance invites us to really SEE something we are so accustomed to that we’ve become blind to it:
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A Strategy for Tumultuous Times (Bruce Lee)
I was pondering how to remain sane in the tumult and violence that seems to be our world these days, where lunatics of every stripe are taking center stage, when I remembered this quote from Bruce Lee, the great kung fu master:
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Poetry Vending Machine DIY, with Mary Oliver, Rumi, Anne Sexton
As kids we loved old-fashioned vending machines that would drop a little plastic container holding a treasure — a ring, miniature toy, or candy — through the shoot when we put in a dime or a quarter. Lately, various iterations of poetry vending machines have been coming to our attention, perfect for our adult selves. Imagine…
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What is YOUR Artist’s Studio?
A couple of weeks ago while we were compiling Artist’s Studios with Sofas + Rest Spaces, we stumbled on picture of earth artist Roy Staab‘s that had the notation: The Site Is My Studio. There was Staab creating in the Hudson River in 1989. IN THE HUDSON RIVER! It got us thinking about what our studio is. We realized…
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Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs Made Simple
Two thoughtful contributors sent us info about making natural dyes to color your eggs for Easter or spring celebrations. It spurred us to hone a simplified method for naturally coloring glorious eggs, just in time for the Sunday hunt or gathering…
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Pruning the Old to Allow the New
When we wrote friend and contributor Susan Dworski of many decisions we had were making to change how we worked — limiting some aspects and dreams to focus on others — she likened it to pruning a tree: the essential process of culling and removing branches of a shrub or tree in order to encourage growth. Her words and…
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When Doing a Geographic Renews and Enlivens
Current self-help wisdom asserts that ‘doing a geographic’ to solve your life dilemmas is a Very Bad Move. Blowing Dodge is no answer, they say. Well, I suggest common wisdom could be dead wrong.
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Wall Murals in Vintage Black and White
At A Cup of Jo, we spotted a terrific idea Stylist Meta Coleman employed in her son Henrick’s room at home in Provo, Utah: a black and white wall mural made from a C1900 photo. Here’s how and where she had it made:
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Morning Practice: Reading a Poem…..Again
For some time, our morning practice, before email or anthing digital, has been to read a poem aloud (sometimes with a friend). Recently, we decided to try reading the same poem every morning for a week. We discovered that each day, we’d hear it differently and find something new in those same few lines, as…
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