Our friend Cara De Silva sent us a link to images of trees growing through concrete, with these words. …I was startled and grateful when I looked at these beautiful and inspiring photographs. But not only for the usual reasons. For months now I have been seeing such trees as a metaphor,
Read MoreTree Slab and Stone Bench + Other Improvs at Camp
Some time ago, I spent a week at Omega Institute, a non-profit educational retreat center located in Rhinebeck, New York. It’s kind of like a summer camp for adults who want to retreat, take workshops, be in nature, mull over where they are in their lives. Since Omega was originally a summer camp for kids so…
Read MoreFinding Ready Made Art and Inspiration
Passing by a park one day, we found a ready-made sculpture with a curiously-modern feel. Found art and inspiration comes frequently when you cultivate the practice of seeing. Here’s a trove of examples.
Read MoreWeekend Delight: Double Chocolate Rye Muffins
I was intrigued by the Double Chocolate Rye/spelt muffins touted on Green Kitchen. Chocolate and rye!!!. Rye flour in the US is associated with heavy, gummy, serious breads––certainly not pastries. Doubters warned that they could be “brown rocks,” given the weightiness of the ingredients. But it seems that chocolate and rye are much loved taste combo in Denmark. And Green Kitchen said they were delish, so I decided to try them.
Read MoreFor NYC on the Day of a Building Collapse
This morning eight blocks south of here, two old apartment buildings had collapsed after a violent explosion, near a heavily-trafficked intersection of Harlem. I knew that for some people, as ordinary as me, their lives had been profoundly changed or lost in a moment this morning.
Read Moreexercise averse? outdoors (even a park) is your gym
I used to know a brilliant Reichian therapist who disdained exercise machines. “They make the body stupid”, she said. She believed that physical exercise should take the form of conscious, pleasurable movement that had a reason, not something done mindlessly while watching tv or reading. I’ve thought of this often as I’ve wondered at my…
Read Morediy bathtub tray/desk from a wood board
Spotted at the PegandAwl Etsy shop (above) and Martha Stewart Living (below) simultaneously: bath tub trays/desks made out of a wood (reclaimed or new) board. Beautiful (and a relief from those wire grid tray) but we worry about the board sliding off the edge of the tub. MSL advises screwing on wood struts below. We’ve got another…
Read MoreAbout Improvised Life’s Laboratory
Improvised Life’s LABORATORY is a space where we experiment with all sorts of ideas for home and daily living. It’s transformation from homely, vin ordinaire apartment to a clean-lined loft-like space has been a lesson in seeing through the surface to the bones beneath, and envisioning possibilities. It started with a renovation and carried over into problem-solving…
Read Morereno 101: how to find an affordable architectural plan-maker
After our disastrous experience with a bogus architectural plan drawer we found on Craigslist, the dilemma remained: how to get excellent architectural plans made for the Laboratory’s renovation without paying a fortune. Our new strategy was to put the word out for a talented graduate from a great architecture program like Columbia University and closely…
Read MoreForaging Fallen Trees for DIY’s
Not long after I dragged the tree sculpture home, I went back into the park to see what was happening with the huge, ancient 3-foot-in-diameter oak that Hurricane Sandy brought down. The parks people had been cutting it up — terrible to see. They just sawed it apart into chunks to chip; think of the…
Read Moredept of 2nd acts: tony giglio’s improvised walking sticks
Anthony Giglio, a regular contributor to ‘the improvised life’ — his wine-friendly grape “ice cubes” remain a perpetual hit — recently posted on his website about his dad Tony Giglio’s unexpected, found ‘career’ in retirement. He makes walking sticks, and his story is pure ‘improvised life’: About a year ago my father found inspiration in a…
Read Morehurricane sandy: strange beauty amidst destruction
This morning, I went into Marcus Garvey Park to check out the damage Hurricane Sandy did to the huge old trees. They mean a lot to this part of Harlem, as most of the neighborhood hangs out under during the temperate months. Several trees were down, whole root systems turned on end, including one oak…
Read Morerenovation lesson: going cheap can cost time + money
Once we had a rough plan and sketches for the Laboratory renovation, we needed to take them to the next level: real, accurately measured, to-scale architect’s plans. How do you afford an architect on a very tight budget, we wondered. This is where we made the first of MANY mistakes during the renovation. We hired…
Read Moregiuseppe penone’s tree + ‘the hidden life within’
We were knocked out when we saw this picture of sculptor Giuseppe Penone‘s sapling within a tree that he says is about “the hidden life within.” We thought of many things at once, many of them corny, but true nevertheless…of the origins and emergence of ideas, and the little kid that remains within each of…
Read Morereno planning: bust holes in walls to find out what’s there!
I recently wrote that the first step in planning our renovation was to hang out in the space and dream. That’s not quite true. That step ran concurrently with friends coming over to give their 2-cents and help us explore how exactly the place was made. By explore I mean busting holes in ceiling and…
Read Moreharlem reno: first hang out in the raw space + dream
When I finally got the space in Harlem – blessedly empty of the previous owner’s massive furniture – the first thing I did was haul up my trusty lightweight, reclinable French beach chair so I could hang out and just mull. I’d wander the rooms, feeling the space, able to envision its possibilities better now that the…
Read Moreharlem lab renovation: ‘before’ photos
I’ve been circling the story of the transformation of ‘the improvised life’s new Laboratory from vin ordinaire apartment to its new incarnation of fluid, morphable, multi-use space for living and improvising (a glimpse above), wondering how to tell it. Having shown the early sketches and plans, it seems like the best bet would be to…
Read More‘shelf of stuff’: what’s on yours?
A while back, we clipped a great post from Mondobloggo called ‘That Shelf”. It went: We all have one. The weird, cool ass shit that doesn’t go anywhere else. That gift that you like, but can’t get rid of. Your favorite thing in the world, and the stupidest thing ever…. It all goes on “that…
Read Moredetails of minimalist’s life: jeffrey miller
We worked with Jeffrey Miller many years ago when he was prop stylist and always marveled at his wonderful eye. We also marveled at the apartment he lived in, which at the time was a tiny studio with a giant window on the lower east side of Manhattan. We loved its extreme minimalism which combined function…
Read Morebook giveaway: artists’ handmade houses
We are thrilled to announce ‘the improvised life’ latest giveaway: Abrams’ lush coffee table book Artists’ Handmade Houses, with text by Michael Gotkin and photographs by Don Freeman. It is a sublime collection of thirteen homes created by artists and master craftsmen, both infamous and little known. We first learned about it when we saw images…
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