A fragment from St. Francis of Assisi got us thinking about hands in a new way. Into our head flew images from photographer Tessa Traeger’s moving series, Voices of the Vivarais, of working people in the ancient province in south-east France. and a video about Dutch designer Bertjan Pot.
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The strangely wonderful website This to That employs a simple widget “to help you choose the right glue for your bonding requirements.” You type in the two materials you want to bond and it gives a list of the best options. Glue knowledge is the site’s sole mission. We learned a LOT.
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We love this clip of abstract expressionist artist Ed Clark describing how he came defy the limitations of the paint brush by painting canvasses laid out on the floor with a push broom, the old-fashioned super-wide broom janitor’s used to wash big swathes of floor. His improvisation reminds us of the way ideas can ignite or connect in an instant to yield solutions with mighty effect.
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When Kevin Kelly’s published Cool Tools, his giant “catalog of possibilities”, five years ago, it immediately became our favorite catalogue. Its descriptions are literary, its selection attuned to creative minds. We find it relaxing to read while it makes our brains sparkle in unexpected ways. Now it’s available for $3.99.
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My favorite tool of late is the Hulkenbag: a big cleverly-designed open satchel-on-wheels that holds its structure and can be rolled around anywhere. I throw in whatever I need to shlep and go. When I’m done, I fold it up and stash it out of the way. Perfect.
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As I’ve gotten older, the grim reality-sandwich of falling OFF a ladder has become something I don’t want to experience. I’m loving this light, sturdy low-profile step ladder that looks good enough to leave out.
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Knowing how a long lineage of artists and writers have used rocks and stones in their work expands my pleasure in those I collect for their beauty and endless uses…
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In his beautiful kinetic choreographies of pendulums, artist William Forsythe draws our awareness to ways we negotiate and choreograph our paths…
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Years ago painters left behind some sanding sponges they used to achieve a perfect finish in the high gloss surfaces. Something made me pick one up to try sanding an ugly heating pipe coated in green enamel. The ease-of-transformation was a revelation. I’ve been using that perfect sponge ever since for all sorts of fixes and projects around my house.
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“This is what thought looks like” begins Dennis Overbye’s article about Jessica Wynne’s remarkable photographs of mathematician’s blackboards, that reminded us of Steiner and Cy Twombly…
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Kraft paper is so wildly useful that if I had the room in my city apartment, I’d keep a roll on a wall to have easy access when the mood/need hits.
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Years ago we figured out a technique that no shoemaker seems to know: how to remove the rough blims and tears that stick up on the scraped toes prevents a truly satisfying, long-lasting shine.
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We were casting about for a new book to read when we came across Patti Smith’s technique for rereading personal favorites “three-dimensionally, cubistically, from several angles.
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If you are daunted by the prospect of creating a website for yourself or a project, check out Carrd, a free platform for building simple, stylish responsive one-page sites, fast.
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The simple, clever Time Timer has proven a useful visual aid that helps me focus on whatever I need to make headway with, and then get up and take a break, disrupting the obsessive overfocus I’m prone to. It helps me work more efficiently, with less stress.
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Core 77’s Weekly Design Roast gives our Annals of Bad Design a serious run for the money. Rain Noe deconstructs high-minded, idiotic design, channeling the hilarious design thinking behind it.
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How swell to see Improvised Life mentioned in New York Magazine’s ’31 Low Lift Home Improvements for Under $100′ for our decoding of Donald Judd furniture. We got a lot of ideas for jazzing up our space….
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This coming June, I will be leading a workshop at Omega Institute’s Build Your Audience in the Digital Age Conference which will cover the how-to’s of creating digital products, from blogs to apps to online courses to newsletters, at Omega’s extraordinary, always transformative campus.
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Inspired by studies that view trees as receivers of stellar energies, photographer Beth Moon traveled to the world’s “last dark places” to photograph ancient trees at night, in color.
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In Tim McCreight’s The Complete Metalsmith, I was surprised to find poetic wisdom in his section about hand tools that apply to many kinds of tools we use in creative endeavors, sometimes even smart phones.
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