(Video link here.) A couple of years ago, we wrote about the discovery of a trove of photographs by Vivian Meier, who, while working as a nanny in Chicago and New York during the 50′s and 60′s, was secretly photographing the cities’ street-life during her time off. It was not until years after her death that…
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(Video link here.) This slightly rough, illuminating 4-minute TED talk is by Philip Henson, an artist who developed permanent nerve damage that made it impossible for him to make the fine drawings he loved; his hand shaked so much he could only draw squiggly lines. When his neurologist asked “Well, why don’t you just embrace…
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(Video link here.) We don’t remember how we stumbled on this video by Kathleen Hanna, a New York City-based artist best known for her groundbreaking performances in the seminal 90′s punk band, Bikini Kill, and her more recent multimedia group, Le Tigre. She made it to accompany the song Let’s Run. We find it curiously uplifting: a…
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From our friends at A+B See: In a review of Leonardo and the Last Supper in the January 14, 2013 issue of The New Yorker. we learn that in his time, Da Vinci had a reputation for being a “dilatory and even unreliable worker whose career was strewn with abandoned projects.” According to author, Ross King, he was…
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We found this beautiful gif on Krulwich Wonders some time ago, along with a quote that resonated deeply: We wax, we wane. It’s the dance of life. Every living thing is a pulse. We quicken, then we fade. There’s more to the quote, but the part we related to was principle of waxing and waning,…
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This sketch made by Henri Matisse January 7, 1940 is the first of thirteen he did in preparation for a wondrous painting The Dream completed in September 1940. Scroll down to see great artist’s process…as the painting emerges…
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We’ve been reading Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and stumbled on this amazing bit. No need to know the background. It rings big bells right on it’s own… We’ve enjoyed this fatso novel immensely (except that it’s so heavy). Another favorite chunk is a list of dishes that are part of a rather crazed housekeeper’s repertoire:
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This art work by Egor Kraft is echoing what a lot of people are finally getting with (or trying to): making mistakes are a way to learn, part of the path, the way things work… Yeah! (The guy loves papering the streets with signs by the way. Check these out.) via uncopy Related posts: discover…
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We were reading a packed-full-of-revelations1992 interview with poet Gary Snyder when we came across this amazing, of-the-cuff line. What a concept! The context is his answer to the question about whether he’d work as Secretary of the Interior or other political post if asked: I’ve never thought seriously about that question. Probably not, although I am foolish…
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(Video link here.) The first 20 seconds of this wacky video illustrates an essential tenet of improvisation – especially in cooking: the associations of ideas in your field of vision. Here, a classic breakfast next to a frozen pizza sparks the brilliant idea of a breakfast pizza. For us, it’s lead to the discovery that…
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CreativeMornings Short: George Lois on Courage from CreativeMornings on Vimeo. (Video link here.) In this short, great clip from design legend George Lois‘ CreativeMornings talk, he gives what he considers to be his most essential piece of advice for creatives — for anyone — : “be courageous!“. And suddenly we realized that Lois is curiously reminiscent of the Cowardly…
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(Video link here.) You could say that the renowned artist Alexander Calder, the creator of the mobile, was a major influence on ‘the improvised life’. When I was 13 or so, I babysat his grandkids, and first saw his work around their house: a mobile casually placed on a dining table, household objects made of wire…
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In response to our Dangerous Paths post, graphic designer and illustrator Susan Dworski sent us wonderful email: Several years ago I illustrated an 18th century Japanese saying using watercolors and rubber stamps made from hand carved, Staedtler Mars Erasers. The message reverberates across time. The message not only reverberates BIG TIME, but so does the idea of carving…
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(Video link here.) Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, we spent a couple of hours following links in Roy Arden’s ever-illuminating blog. One took us to a vertigo-inducing video of a man walking the Caminito del Rey in Spain — a narrow path in deep disrepair pinned along the steep walls of a gorge — which people mostly do…
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(Video link here.) We’re getting a little tired of pat ideas about how creativity works, based on “research”. Take Jonah Lehrer’s quick little film debunking the practice of brainstorming: getting a group of people in a room to throw out ideas without have their ideas criticized. The gist is that RESEARCH has shown that every…
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(Video link here.) Several times during the past week, we heard several very creative people we know say “Sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy” meaning…crazy to be doing this…or that…or whatever uncharted path they’ve embarked upon that is not THE NORM. In honor of them, and to antidote the feeling that “crazy” is bad, we…
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Spotted on Elephant Journal founder Waylon Lewis’ facebook. ’nuff said. Thanks Waylon! Related posts: xusing your car to speak your heart public signs that inspire creativity: why not?! gandhi: ‘our beliefs become our…destiny powerful words: devise, invent, create, change…
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Patrick Martinez’s neon sign made us think. We believe strongly in building… …but if you aren’t building… are you destroying? OR…
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A while back, we accidentally ordered a book of poems by the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. We love his poetry, especially his odes, but weren’t crazy about the selections in this particular book. Or so we thought. We’ve discovered that opening it randomly often yields treasures we could have sworn weren’t there when we first…
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We are big fans of Junot Diaz, whose novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was so original, we didn’t want to give it away (as we usually do with fiction we’ve read); we knew we’d go back to it to dive back into its wild language. With the release of Diaz’ latest book This…
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