a painted (floor) rug

Writing ‘the improvised life’, we discover that themes come in waves: one idea (or image) seems to attract another that takes the idea a step further, or gives it a different spin (may be it’s simply that our sights are honed…). It can happen with several themes at once. Lately, a big one has been…

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guerrilla dance goes viral in a spanish bank

The Spanish guerrilla collective  flo6x8 has been making a series of benignly disruptive and moving actions in banks, as protest for what they believe is a corrupt system. They favor flamenco, with its varied roots most famously Andalucian Gypsy culture, as their means of expression, most often with dancing or singing. Last December, flo6x8 slipped into…

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painted fabric redux: clothes!

Even though we’d recently imagined painting cloth-covered chairs and sofas, tablecloths, pilllows and curtains, we didn’t think about CLOTHES! This timely reminder came from Ebay, via An Ambitious Project Collapsing. Imagine the possibilities… Related posts: copy this: paint a pillow…sofa…bedspread…curtain… blank canvas furniture

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re-thinking book design (tara mann)

Tara Mann who often works at ‘the improvised life’ is also pursuing a BFA in Communication Design AND a BA in Digital Media. She recently posted a portfolio of her work from last semester. We love her design of an intense philosophical essay: to format it as a WORKBOOK with lots of white space around the text.…

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weight control system, via ernest hemingway

The great blog Ouno recently published a wonderful post about Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway’s villa in Cuba where he lived from 1939 to 1960; the house has been preserved pretty much intact. We love Hemingway’s method for tracking his weight: write daily scale readings on the bathroom wall. (We’d paint the wall with whiteboard paint.)

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skateistan: skateboarding as antidote (to war, poverty, sadness…)

This stunning video is well worth the riveting 9 minutes it takes to watch it, even (or especially) in the midst of a busy day. Part of Sundance’s short film program, it is a moving, beautifully filmed documentary about Skateistan, Afghanistan’s first co-educational skateboarding school, created by Oliver Percovich to help kids dealing with a life…

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reverse-painted stairs (a carpet of wood)

From a UK home with a Scandinavian feel: a “carpet” of unpainted wood going up the stairs  (the reverse of the usual painted steps). It kind of reminds us of the Painted Floor with a Surprise we posted about recently…adding an unexpected twist on the expected. via French by Design

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come poke around our attic

We found this nugget in an email from our friend Tim Slavin, who’s written some great guest posts (listed below): …I spent a few hours rooting through the 400 plus stories you’ve published since the start of last year.  Lots of neat stuff in the Improvised Life “attic”! Our ATTIC!!! …indeed,  a virtual one, full…

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copy this: paint a pillow…sofa…bedspread…curtain…

The endlessly clever Wary Meyers, designer and author of Wary Meyers’ Tossed & Found: Unconventional Design from Cast-offs, sells cotton canvas pillow covers that he’s painted with acrylic paint, which is pliable. He mimics the look and feel of famous Abstract Expressionist works – like De Kooning, Pollock, Kline, Motherwell. The pillows are backed with velvet…

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