In a recent profile in the New Yorker of artist Laura Owens, we found some really liberating ideas about talent, painting and the BEST take on making mistakes we’ve seen.
Read More
Create Your Own Crazy Vision (Marc Johns, Emily Dickinson, et al)
The great Marc Johns’ sign NAILS Improvised Life’s essential message and practice. We learn by example…(and poetry).
Read More
Finding Your Fuel
Having just turned a BIG birthday, I’ve been thinking hard about what fuels me, and what I pursue that is not powered by good strong fuel. Fuel to me equals meaning, as well as pleasure. Taking stock is useful; it’s simple process, really, that you can do throughout your day.
Read More
A New Year: We Gather to See…(Friend, Nye, Albers)
On this second day of the New Year, we feel like the people in We Gather to See, Amy Friend’s wonderful photograph. To gather to see is our mission for the New Year…because, as Naomi Shahab Nye’s poem Moment* reminds…
Read More
A Blessing for Creatives for All Kinds (John O’Donohue)
A gift via email has fueled us ever since we received it: a blessing from poet and philosopher John O’Donohue’s superb book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. We find it to be the perfect first-thing-in-the-morning reading, and deeply heartening and calming anytime, so we’ve made a pdf you can download.
Read More
Emily Dickinson on Possibility via The Lucky Art of Bibliomancy
Recently in a secondhand bookstore, a jazzy little book jumped into my hand. I was drawn to it by its beautiful cover design which read “Dickinson”, meaning Emily. Finding the book, and the first poem I turned to, proved to be a lovely bit of bibliomancy.
Read More
Calvino: ‘Each Life is a Library’
In light of our posts on decluttering houses and work spaces, and our consideration of THINGS and what we need to live well and freely, we found Italo Calvino’s thoughts incredibly clarifying. The possibility that … everything can be constantly shuffled and reordered in every way conceivable… is at the heart of living an improvised…
Read More
improvised life: leap…and one thing leads to another
Recently, we were browsing through Paperless Post looking for a virtual card to congratulate a couple we know on their twentieth anniversary of being together. We stumbled upon this image by Magnum Photographer Ferdinando Scianna and thought: that’s it! Over the past year, both members of the couple has been feeling their way, and ultimately…
Read More
wishing you a new view for the new year
We wish you wondrous revelations, peace, well-being, prosperity, aliveness, blessings, delight, surprise, balance, joy, growth, POSSIBILITY. ‘leaf frame’ via Sarah Charlesworth Related posts: a better version of calder’s amazing ad + our thanks
Read More