My recent week-long hiatus sans computer proved to be tremendously healing, slowing things down in the studio…while giving me permission to…become deliciously – literally – powerless..
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The Wonder of Room-Size Shadow Boxes
Our friend Susan Dworski recently email us a link to artist Anila Quayyum Agha‘s room-size shadow box with this note: Sally – this is pretty fabulous. So simple a concept, so detailed the craft, so profoundly spiritual the effect. And she is right. ‘Intersections’ is large-scale shadow box composed of Moorish patterns suspended in the middle of…
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Must Read: Anne Lamott’s “Everything I know”
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 from decades of living.
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Vicarious Home Building: Blu Home’s Breezehouse
Want to see a very cool house appear before your very eyes? Watch as the Blu Home‘s team delivers, sets, and unfolds a prefab Breezehouse in one day, making it watertight before the impending rain. (Video link here.)
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Celebrating Spring with Dark Ambiguity of Maximón
Easter, Passover and the innumerable rites of spring used to make me anxious and defensive. Tales of death, rebirth, joy and sorrow, suffering and salvation, history recited, vows reaffirmed, sacred foods eaten: traditions created to allow tribes to regroup, bond, and go forth again into an uncertain world. Part of me bridled; I wanted to…
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DIY Idea-Capturing Desks
Kirsten Camara’s Analog Memory Desk has a holder embedded in its legs for scrolling huge rulls of butcher paper over the desk’s surface to make “a sort of tablecloth of memory”. It can record months, possibly years of ideas, drawings, doodles, mind maps, phone numbers, calculations etc. She has made detailed blueprints so you can build your own. Or you try these other methods of analog idea-capturing.
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Morning Wakeup: Dolphins Surf the Waves
(Video link HERE.) A visual poem for the day; no words needed. —Susan Dworski
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Do You Need Permission to Stop?
While I was on my sudden, much-needed hiatus last week, I emailed Susan Dworski, a frequent contributor/now-dear-friend, about the heartening and supportive messages I’d received from readers. She sent the image, below, (titled appropriately “I’m Wired“), with this note: Maybe it’ll take a village to get you unplugged. She hit the nail on the head.
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Valentines: Digital, Analog and Otherwise
Creating a one-inch expression of love to be utilized by millions is no slam dunk as seen in this short conversation with designer Jessica Hische, who created a Forever stamp for the U.S. Postal Service. (Video link HERE.) I love the harmonious convergence of digital and analog as seen in her workspace with computer cum hand…
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Snowboarding in LED’s
(Video link HERE.) Insanely beautiful and daring. The absence of any sound except the simple piano accompaniment punches up the stark black and white imagery as Sutton carves across snowbanks and threads through barren trees trailing a roostertail of powered crystals. May your Monday be this luminous. —Susan Dworski via Nowness
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Insta-Meditation + Anxiety Antidote: The Endless Ocean
(Video link HERE.) On the East Coast, our attention is on the monster blizzard heading our way and the constant notices of road and transit closings and a general feeling of… DANGER. On the West Coast, Susan Dworski in Venice, California reported “80 degrees with a weird red sky and bed sheets pulled off to wash are…
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The Magical Flying Lighting We’d REALLY Love to Have
(Video link HERE.) Just as we were writing out post decrying the ubiquitous pendant lamp, Susan Dworski sent us this charmer of a short film. Sparked, a collaboration between Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich and Verity Studios creates an unexpected dance between a human and 10 quadcopters (drones). It’s a bit slow until 1:41 when the magical…
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A Winter Solstice Reflection on Loss and Joy
Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, the shortest day —and longest night — of the year, when the sun pauses on its southward trajectory, then starts its cimb north, and the cycle begins once again. Some of us wait to begin rejuvenating our lives until New Year’s Eve when the glittering ball drops in Times Square. But…
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Origami Holiday Ornaments to Start DIYing NOW
Looking for something new to decorate the holidays this year, I’ve become smitten with origami decorations for the tree, to hang in the window, or place on the table. Or even to give as a small gift. I learned of the idea from my friend Peta Rimington, who had a gourmet food store and cafe called…
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What’s Better: Scared or Sensible? And why?
When contemplating a life change, what’s better: scared or sensible? How does one choose? And why? After wrestling for several grueling weeks with making a radical, lock-stock-and-barrel move, I’ve decided to stay put and work on making a meaningful internal geographic instead. In many ways this kind of psychological change is a much tougher adventure, in…
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Industrial Metal Storage As Furniture
On design sites recently, we’ve been noticing quite a few interesting iterations of industrial storage cabinets —new and vintage—as furniture, like the classic Bisley 10-drawer steel storage cabinet, above. We’ve relied on the trusty Ikea lacquered metal Helmer drawer cabinets ($39) for years,
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Van Gogh’s Glowing ‘Starry Night’ Bike Path
Inspired by Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde created a wondrous solar-powered LED bicycle path that glows luminous green in the dark. The path, which has been likened to a “river of stars, fallen down ‘Starry Night’”, is located in Brabant, the county where the painter was raised. How wonderful it would be as…
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Never Give Up!
I saw this old dhow (wooden boat) in the harbor at Lamu in 1988 and took a quick shot of the transom. It was a lousy photo and I always regretted not getting a better shot. Then I found this one of the very same boat in Bibi Jordan’s book, Swahili Chic: The Feng Shui of…
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Trees and Foliage Inspire Street Art
I’ve been collecting a stash of graffiti images for a while. They range from cutie kitsch to angry gangbanger to political harangues. The ones I like best combine existing natural foliage with painted images and play around with scale—large and small—creating an improvised, witty, public art gallery.
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Día de los Muertos: A Spirited Celebration to Make Your Own
As fall turns inexorably toward winter, the Day of the Dead festivities serve to help us re-experience
a powerful and sustaining truth: that the intense sorrow of death and the intense joy of living are indivisibly
and forever, One.