One of the many details we love in sculptor Constantino Nivola’s “outdoor rooms” are the walls he erected to define space and make into artworks. We’re crazy for this tree wall sculpture, as well as his wall paintings, including the Solarium. Hmmm. Wonder how they are made? Of course, we tried to figure it out, hoping…
Read More
Saul Steinberg drew his imaginings of what goes on in a person’s daydreams, and David Shrigley made a list* of the kinds of things that can come from that. Shonda Rhimes tells how to get those imaginings OUT of your head, and into the world.
Read More
Sorry, this gif just doesn’t want to stay published on our site. Just click here to make it pop out. Somebody spent a lot of creative thought, time, cardboard and energy making these seven seconds happen… Amazement! via Holton Rower via i.imgur.com
Read More
We’ve long admired this rather visionary bathroom of some friends. They planned their bathroom to accommodate what most bathrooms do in an ad hoc way: house reading material and intellectual pursuits. That got us checking out other iterations of this idea.
Read More
Among Constantino Nivola’s inspiring outdoor garden rooms is his open air “solarium”, designed with high, white walls to reflect the sun “to such a degree that nude sunbathing was possible even in the winter.” And an artful solarium it is.
Read More
(Video link here.) We didn’t “get” Mister Rogers until we were introduced to Paul Zelevansky, an artist, writer and teacher who created the YouTube series “Mister Rogers for Adults”, provocative 60-second shorts made up of video clips from Rogers’ shows and interviews. Zelevansky challenges the assumptions that Mister Rogers was a sweet, milquetoast cornball. In Zelavansky’s view,…
Read More
Tom Ashcraft “Artisan, Naturalist, Electroreceptor and Scientific Instrument Builder” is a man who completely defies categorization. He’s got all sorts of gear that constantly monitors and records wondrous things that are going on in the sky all around us. His lovely little film is like watching the night sky out in the country…
Read More
When we were hunting for a affordable flooring solutions for the Laboratory, we came across a wood floor we had never seen before in a store in Soho: it was made from tiles cut across the grain of hard wood beams: end cuts placed in a grid to make an unexpectedly beautiful pattern. The lighting in…
Read More
Tobias Wong’s inspired mattress on a grouping of pushed-together 2-drawer lateral files has long been an inspiration for our imaginings and phanta-designs for beds built on file cabinets. But, until recently, we hadn’t considered possibilities in the realm flat-files.
Read More
Clear profit. We DO have that in the sky, friends and our daily interactions with our readers, who always surprise.Can that profit pay the bills and all that goes into making Improvised Life? The jury’s out. It makes us wonder: What IS this stuff called money, really? Our friend Holton Rower makes art out of it!
Read More
Working hard? Why not take a break and listen to what the guys hanging out under the trees on 124th street in Harlem listen to on summer nights: Motown. You’ll findthe Complete No. 1’s HERE at rdio. SORRY, THE GREAT RDIO CLOSED IT’S DOORS IN 2015. You can read all about the inspired site…
Read More
We love cast-iron, the endlessly-useful, impossible-to-destroy cookware. It provides the even heat of heavy copper cookware at a fraction of the cost…If properly cared for, cast-iron will build up a naturally nonstick surface that can take the place of commerical nonstick cookware, about which there are health concerns. Here’s our tried-and-true method and favorite pans (and recipes).
Read More
Netherlands-based Designer Francois Duquesnoy is a nomad at heart. Instead of moving heavy furniture everytime he changes living space, he prefers to use whatever discarded items he finds in his new surroundings and transmute them. Sometimes, he splices objects together. More often, he simply paints what he finds, every detail in the same color. As with…
Read More
Marella Consolini, former Chief Operating Officer of the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, is one of the many very interesting Improvised Life readers we’ve come to know and be amazed by. Somehow years ago, an email exchange started and continued until we feel like she is an old friend, who we happen to have never met in person. In…
Read More
We recommend turning the music off while you watch this tiny miracle: a strawberry comes into being from flower to fruit. Since strawberries are in season (and went through such an amazing process of becoming), here are our favorite ways for enjoying them.
Read More
EVERYONE we know has questions about wine and the best person we know for answers is Anthony Giglio, aka The Wine Wise Guy, an Improvised Life contributor and of late, wine blogger for Details. Here’s some essential advice.
Read More
The Frey Desk is a flexible modular workspace that quickly transitions from sitting desk to drafting table to standing desk to easel. It is decidedly brilliant and, to us, pretty homely. Nevermind. We LOVE Frey’s design thinking…
Read More
Italy Ohaly’s installation of colorfully-painted walls covered in black paper invites wiewers to scratch off the paper to make unexpected colored patterns in the walls. We were wondering how that could work in a house when we found Tear-Off-Wallpaper.
Read More
(Video link HERE.) In this marvel of a Sesame Street video, an elegant pig sings about the exquisite joy of a its existence, most particularly mud. We don’t know when we’ve seen anyone revel in the sensuous, divine moment as this pig counting its blessings. Counting and FEELING blessings is practice to emulate… What if we remembered to take full…
Read More
Composer Phillip Glass Glass worked his make-a-living-job while still making time for composing. Here’s his compelling story + music from Einstein on the Beach, which he wrote while driving a cab to pay the bills.
Read More