February 2012
'henry miller on writing' (new directions)
In the early thirties, as he was writing Tropic of Cancer
, his first published novel that was to become a classic of twentieth century fiction- Henry Miller wrote himself this list of 11 commandments. We find them really useful – some more than others – applicable to many creative pursuits:
- Work on one thing at a time until finished.
- Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
- Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
- Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
- When you can’t create you can work.
- Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
- Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
- Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
- Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
- Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
- Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
02.15.12 |
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in inspiration blogs + sites, paths + processes, people, principles, quotes, rules for living, signs |
We’ve long loved Dutch architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld’s elegant, elemental, iconic wood furniture. When we read that there was a book of his built-it-yourself furniture designs, we were thrilled….until we discovered that it cost $145 new and $78 used at Amazon. Darn. (Curious, a few days later we found that it IS available on Amazon
though we had searched and searched before…)
So we went on a hunt. And found it! How to Construct Rietveld Furniture is available for $39.95 at Tools for Woodworking. Here’s its enticing description:
Rietveld’s furniture is really easy to make. The joinery is well within the skill of even a rank beginner, and you come out with world class 20th century furniture…The designs range from his famous chairs to tables, stools, a magnificent sideboard, a few pieces scaled for children, and some lamps from his more architectural work. read more…
02.14.12 |
comments (2) |
in d-i-y, furniture, gifts, how-to, people, plans, projects + play, resources, resources books + zines |
“Read a Valentine heart shape from top to bottom. and it says the two can become one.
Read it from bottom to top, and it says the one can become two with the two still connected.
Read a Valentine heart shape as a whole, and it says wholeness is a place to live with room inside for the liquid of life and many adventures. read more…
02.14.12 |
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in celebrations, family + friends |
Early this morning we received an email from a friend who was about to make chocolate truffles for her Valentine, and wasn’t sure how to transport them. The email was sent in the wee hours of the morning, and we realized that for many, today means a last-minute scramble to get ready for Valentine’s day – TOMORROW. So here are some suggestions we’ve found in our morning surfing, or that we include in our personal arsenal.
We love the cut-and-fold d-i-y cards Made by Joel came up with. They are meant as a kid’s project but we think they’d make a swell grownup valentine: the template ever-inventive Joel Henriques generously included as a pdf has an appealing abstract look that is great unto itself… read more…
02.13.12 |
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in celebrations, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, food, gifts, projects + play, recipes, resources, resources blogs + sites |
'improvised life'
A post on 99% by James Victore gave us pause last week. He writes about how as we spend more and more time staring at screens (our computers, our phones, iPads, etc), our brains change too: we forget how to function without immediate access to “information.” Because we are always plugged in to our various networks or jobs, we no longer distinguish between what needs to happen NOW and what can wait…what we feel compelled to do vs what is good for us. We appreciate that Victore doesn’t tell us to simply throw away our technology:
Don’t get me wrong, I love the tools… Going backwards is not the answer. The answer is being conscious of the time spent on screens versus the time spent on ourselves. Can you create more time in your life? Time to plan and organize your life? Can you make more time to give to others? The answers are discipline, etiquette, and understanding the importance of time in our lives.
These are good questions and Victore offers some good answers; the gist read more…
02.13.12 |
comments (3) |
in paths + processes, people, principles, rules for living, strategies |
photo: Virginia Del Giudice
Valentine’s Day is next week, which leaves us thinking about gifts that break the chocolate-and-flowers mold. We were suddenly reminded of an email we received from Virginia Del Giudice, a reader in Argentina, who used my simple Lemon Olive Oil recipe from A New Way to Cook
to make Christmas presents. We thought this would be a lovely homemade Valentine’s gift as well, especially for someone who likes to cook.
Virginia went the extra mile and made beautiful labels for the bottles:
“I designed the labels with my computer and printed at home on a thin green paper I kept a long time in a drawer. It had some wrinkles but I found that nice and didn’t want to correct it! It has a feeling of old times. In small text I wrote your suggestions for usage.”
Virginia was kind enough to share her labels, which you can find here. They’re in Spanish, but you can always fill in your own English text (or keep the Spanish, which is lovely and adds some flair). I was thinking that all dressed up like this, this oil would make a lovely untraditional Valentine’s Day gift for someone who loves to cook. Chocolate is always great, but who doesn’t love something a little different. read more…
02.10.12 |
comments (5) |
in community, d-i-y, eating, food, gifts, recipes |
photo: philippe halsman
We love of images of people jumping and leaping and have posted quite a few: they seemed like apt visual metaphors for a life principle, of being willing to take leaps…risk…or just jump for joy. In 1959 , photographer Philippe Halsman published a series of famous people jumping. Our favorite is Eva Marie Saint, leaping with such joyous abandon.
It’s clear to us that when you jump, no matter who you are, you jump -if only a little – out of your usual stance, witness Halsman’s picture of the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor. read more…
02.09.12 |
comments (4) |
in art, copy this!, identity, leaping + flying, outside, paths + processes, people, principles |
photo: marc raboy
One of the most inspiring D-I-Y books we know of is from the 70′s, with illustrations in black-and-white. It is Spiros Zakas’ More Furniture in 24 Hours, a book of plans for making simple, sculptural, practical pieces of furniture FAST, like this folding screen made of hollow-core doors and piano hinges. Unlike most hinged doors, this one doesn’t have to zig-zag to stand up…it can even be configured in a circle.
The book is chock full of ideas, which, if you don’t actually do them, will lodge in your mind as a possible solution or way to improvise your own creations, as a kind of liberation. Writes Zakas:
Making thing is an art, whether it is baking bread, sewing a quilt, or building a table. It is self-expression, a way of knowing what we like and how we like it, of discovering who we are. The interesting thing I have found is that everyone is creative in many ways if he or she will only try them. Just because you have neer done something doesn’t mean that you can’t. read more…
02.09.12 |
comments (3) |
in d-i-y, furniture, resources books + zines, solutions |
via modernthread.blogspot.com
We love the way the internet can increase people’s ability to design and fabricate things that have traditionally been the realm of professional designers and manufacturers. Our newest favorite online resource/service is digital fabric printing. Over the past three or four years, a number of online textile printers have popped up, including Spoonflower, Karma Kraft, and Fabric on Demand. While each site differs slightly in what they offer and how they work with you, the general principal remains the same: you pick a pattern or design your own, upload it to the site and select your fabric type and reference colors; then wait for your fabric (or practice swatch) to arrive at your front door.
As always, part of the trick is deciding which service to try. Luckily, Kim at TrueUp did the leg-work for us in 2009, printing the same design with four different companies. (One of them, Eye Candey, doesn’t seem to exist anymore). Her experience is extremely helpful, and includes tips about what file type and image resolution to use, as well as the differences in pigment type and the importance of color-correcting. She also created this handy comparison pdf (updated in March 2010) so you can see the differences between each printer.
If you’ve ever wanted to design your own textiles, it doesn’t get much easier than this. Need some ideas for patterns? We find them everywhere, read more…
02.08.12 |
comments (1) |
in d-i-y, elements, how-to, materials, resources blogs + sites, services, textiles |
Studio 360 recently aired a story about garage inventors; people who are innovating, pushing the boundaries of science, and creating without government funding or hi-tech labs. Garage inventors tend to be really smart and really tenacious; sometimes they come up with incredibly useful-to-the-world inventions, like William Kamkwamba who created electricity-generating windmills out of scrap parts in his poor African village; sometimes the inventions are the focus of a personal passion that not everybody sees as useful, from submarines-built-for-one to Miroslav Tichy‘s brilliant homemade cameras (above), created out of need and the belief that “you have to have a bad camera” to make compelling photos. But we’re most interested in the mindset that makes a person a self-propelled inventor. We especially liked this example:
Rachel Zimmerman works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, but she was an amateur inventor first. In seventh grade she created the Bliss Symbol printer, which allowed people with cerebral palsy to communicate quickly. “The nice thing about being 12 years old is that nobody is telling you what you can and can’t do.”
Practicing thinking like a kid is clearly one of the keys to innovative thinking. If you forget what you’ve been told you can or cannot do, the world opens up. Suddenly, there are more possibilities…
We’ve discovered that many of our readers have the “garage inventor’ mentality (whether they have a garage or not). They practice thinking outside-the-box to devise solutions to everyday problems. read more…
02.08.12 |
comments (2) |
in community, d-i-y, people, reimagine, strategies, technology |
photo: kurosawa kawaraten
Never have we seen such a complete transformation of a house as that masterminded by Japanese architecture firm kurosawa kawaraten with just… paint – a paint job taken to the nnnth-degree. According to Design Boom:
“…none of the exterior or interior structure is changed, only a thin coat of white paint is applied to the surface. Only by adding white, the form is accentuated; white creates a modern and abstract version of the previous building.”
Modern and abstract is what this previously ordinary house became… read more…
02.07.12 |
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in before + after, buildings, dream houses, inspiration, reimagine |
