identity

Mick Jagger Redefines Great Grandfather Stereotype

At 70 years young, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger recently became a great-grandfather CRASH! There goes the stereotype of what an aged grandpa looks like. Check out this clip.

The Burning House: What are Your Most Essential Objects?

We’ve written about Foster Huntington’s love of simplicity before, but we’ve recently discovered another project of his: The Burning House. This one, makes us think about our Life Essentials by asking the question, “What would you take with you if your house was on fire?” We love that Huntington has taken this familiar question a step further by asking…

Embrace Your Body, Change Your Life

I’m betting that one thing we all could use is a Get Out Of Jail card to help us learn how to love our bodies – just as they are. I’m also wagering you may be asking yourself, as I did: why is this woman on the right smiling? What’s wrong with her?

A Post-It with a Powerful Message for Mother’s + Grandmother’s Day

I’ve always struggled with Mother’s Day. Too pink, too saccharine, too much forced happiness when the reality so often cloaks a good deal of ambivalence, sadness, and hidden anger. That all changed when I opened our Little Free Library on the front fence yesterday and discovered Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi’s extraordinary graphic memoir of…

The “Let Men Wear Skirts” Movement

Our friend Chris Eldredge alerted us to a fashion trend he’s noticed: Men Wearing Skirts. He said that he’s seen a number of stylishly dressed men wearing skirts lately —definitely NOT in drag. Interesting. A search took us to The Facebook page of Women Wear Pants. Let Men Wear Skirts, which features a lot of…

Men’s Hairstyles from the 60’s and 70’s: Creativity Meets Self-Image

(Video link HERE.) Inspired YouTuber 2869rjh compiled this hilarious montage of awful men’s hairstyles from the 1960s and 1970s, via pictures from Retronaut. It’s a reminder of the wondrously-insane creations divised in the name of fashion and self-image. Here’s to human beings (or being human)!! via Laughing Squid

Role Model: 13-year-old Girl Eagle Huntress

Thirteen-year-old Ashol Pan is one of the first females to learn eagle-hunting, a tradition among Kazakh eagle hunters that was the province of boys and men. We think the image at the joyful Pan is incredibly heartening, a perfect example of “Why not?”

How Vivian Maier Defied the Norm and Made Her Secret Art

Anthony Lane asks a compelling question in his review of Finding Vivian Maier, a documentary about the nanny who, during the 50′s and 60′s, secretly photographed the street-life of Chicago during her time off.

Being Okay with Not Knowing Where You’re Going

We know a lot of people who are in big changes in their lives. Susan Dworski recently reminded us of a poem that contains simple wisdom about the very complex subject of becoming.

Fantasy Facelift Redux: ‘It is better to look forward and out’

Our recent Fantasy Facelift post got quite a response, including a number of emails from readers. One very moving one came from our friend Ellen Silverman, who has been working on photography and video projects in Cuba. Here’s what she wrote:

Fantasy Face-Lift

At a photo shoot at Maria’s studio, Suzanne Shaker and I played “face lift”, standing behind each other and gently “lifting” each other’s face. It was a funny, weird, grown-up girls’ game played by women who’d never actually get a face lift. We’re game to go where our faces take us…For a moment, we found a way to improvise younger selves.

Mindshift: Imagine Wearing Someone Else’s Outfit (or Body)

Artist Qozop juxtaposed the dress of youths with that of their elders in an project designed to show that societal beliefs and traditions are often reflected through the clothing we wear, especially in Asian cultures. By swapping the clothing of youths and their elderly relatives, Qozop literally places them in the others shoes. We’ve been using Qozop’s strategy as an interesting exercise in imagination.

7-Year-Old Calls Out Lego on Their Limiting Thinking

Seven-year-old Charlotte Benjamin recently wrote the Lego Company calling them out on their gender-stereotyped toys: All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs, even swam with sharks. She calls on the Lego…

Tattooed Freckles…Freckle Tattoo

In addition to her promotion of toast as comfort food, we also dig restaurant-owner Giulietta Carrelli’s freckles tattooed on her cheeks, yet another innovative, curiously pragmatic cosmetic tattoo. Don’t got freckles? Tattoo them.

What Language Does Your Body Speak?

Artist Gracie Hagen’s project “Illusions of the Body” explored the distance between media-propagated imagery of men and women with impossibly pristine bodies, and the genuine very-imperfect reality of our own flesh. For us it had another, more powerful message.

Unusual Paths: Why Give Up Celebrity to Become a Buddhist Nun?

In this quiet, yet curiously fast-moving 7-minute video portrait, Chudrun explains what led her away from a life of celebrity, drugs and materialism at the host of BBC’s Top Gear to one of reflection, compassion and ritual as a Buddhist nun. Her leap onto what might seem an opposite path and the willingness to change is at the very heart of improvising.

Alternate Realities: Jimmy Nelson’s ‘Before They Pass Away’

British Photographer Jimmy Nelson spent three years traveling to some of the most remote places on earth to document unique, endangered tribal cultures with his 4 x 5 view camera. The result is Before They Pass Away, a 12-pound, 400-page coffee table book as well as a stunning interactive website.

People, Stylish Interiors, Everything…Ages and Changes!

Aging, in oneself or one’s surroundings, is nearly impossible to see until, suddenly, it has already happened. Shiny new paint become dingy and marked; interiors and websites become dated, and as we see from these remarkable gifs, WE ourselves, slowly change…We are all in process. A remarkable series of gifs at My Modern Met perfectly…

6 liberating truths about our bodies, from a massage therapist

Long time massage therapist Dale Favier’s take on bodies will dispel any judgements you may have been carrying around about your ‘imperfect’ body.

How to Create Something Bigger Than Yourself

We love this comic by Grant Snider, “Creator of Incidental Comics by night and Mover of teeth by day,” explaining the Art of the Self-Portrait. Whether or not we think of ourselves as visual artists, it’s likely we can all relate to the daily process of evaluating ourselves in the mirror and figuring out how to…

Posts navigation