As we’ve read tributes in celebration of Yoko Ono’s 90th birthday, we’ve been thinking about her too and of the many amazing things she has put into the world. She has lived through so much and never stopped making her art, speaking up, working to antidote the violence of our age. The mindshifts her work catalyzes remain refreshing, heartening, helpful. Here are a few of our favorites:
Read MoreHoliday Uplift During the 4th Wave (Eddie Izzard, James Brown, Yoko Ono, Toni Morrison, Shirazeh Houshiary)
What started with the hopeful return to old ways of celebrating the holiday season suddenly turned into exhaustion and disappointment at yet another wave of a scary variant. Again. Right now, we want relief from it all: momentary escape, joy, illumination, uplift.
Read MoreMend Peace (Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois)
We were instantly riveted by @tumanualidades.de’s tiny videos of mending because they were so restful to watch, offering seemingly simple solutions to fixes we have in the past spent too much time worrying or procrastinating about. They called to mind a cosmic view of mending and sewing from some favorite artists.
Read MoreYoko Ono’s Instruction For Navigating Our Changed Lives
In advance of reopening after months of coronavirus lockdown, the Metropolitan Museum of Art posted words by Yoko Ono on its facade. She created them in response to Covid-19 as an essential instruction.
Read More4 Ways to Shift Your Dark View from Yoko Ono
The news is so very terrible, it is weighing on everyone we know. Then we stumbled on some heartening messages from Yoko Ono in our archive that help to shift the view.
Read MoreYoko Ono’s New Year’s Wish
A few days ago, Yoko Ono posted this remarkable message on her instagram, a perfect New Year’s wish. We’ve found some compelling images to go with it, and Ono’s spare, powerful recording of “Imagine”.
Read MoreYoko Ono’s Instruction for Mending (Cup, Self, Family, Earth…)
Yoko Ono’s 1966 lovely “Mend Piece” is a participatory installation that, like many Ono works, comes with instructions designed to resonate personally, meaningfully, expansively…
Read MoreBring a Little Piece of Nature Into the Home, Heart, Day (Yoko Ono, Max Lamb)
It usually takes just a shift of orientation, or your usual route to work or the store, to work some living trees into your day and heart. Here’s some inspiration from Yoko Ono and Max Lamb…
Read MoreYoko Ono’s Cleaning Pieces for the First Day of Spring
Yoko Ono’s potent little book Acorn provides conceptual “instructions” that are often focused on healing and personal change. Her four Cleaning Pieces seem like just spring cleaning we could use right now. We’re especially curious about Cleaning Piece III, wondering what it would be like to NOT say anything negative about anybody. Sue Timmons tried the practice and reported its effect…
Read MoreYoko Ono Made Bottles of Night Air into Poetry (+ a Song)
These bottles of Night Air by Yoko Ono remind us of the jar of air we brought back from Ireland, to capture and remember that exact time and place…and air.
Read More2 Essential Heartening Messages from Yoko Ono
The news is so very terrible, it is weighing on everyone we know. What to do? These two messages from Yoko Ono really help.
Read MoreBox of Smile, Jar of Time and Space (Yoko Ono et al)
Yoko Ono’s 1971 A Box of Smile reminded us of the many kind of conceptual vessels that can hold ideas for us, and give us experiences. Including a log cabin, and a canning jar.
Read MoreHospital Survival Strategies from Yoko Ono and Improvised Life
Over the past couple of years we spent a good amount of time helping friends navigate hospital stays. We started to write a piece about the many strategies we devised. THEN we stumbled on some photos of Yoko Ono’s hospital stay in the late sixties. The room was full of visuals that antidoted the ugly…
Read MoreValentine’s Day Practice (Jenny Holzer + Yoko Ono)
We’re thinking alternative ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day…
Read MoreWe Leap into The New Year (With Yoko Ono, Mary Oliver, Muybridge, More)
As always we are taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. It’s a time to slow way down and reflect on the year that’s passed so quickly, and on the new one we are about to begin. Here’s a few of the things we look at, and think about.
Read MoreYoko Ono on Arguing or Fighting
After a recent, heart-rending, reverberating argument with a friend (everybody was RIGHT, everybody was WRONG), we wondered if the approaches Yoko Ono outlined in Acorn would have been better ways to go.
Read MoreTaking Time Off to….Breathe (Yoko Ono)
Yoko Ono‘s swell one-word bit of advice is what we are taking the time off to do. We’ll be back in a week. While we’re gone, we invite you to forage our vast archive.
Read MoreYoko Ono: Mend an Object and Your Heart
Every morning, we’ve been reading a page from Yoko Ono’s tiny book of instructions, Acorn. We have been moved by many of the “instructions” we’ve come across. We find this one, which advices a practice of mending, both physical and emotional, especially compelling.
Read MoreYoko Ono’s Cleaning Piece May Change Your Life
We hadn’t realized that Yoko Ono published a sequel to her enduringly wonderful Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions, written in 1964. Acorn‘s conceptual “instructions” seem more overtly focused on healing and personal change. We are especially intrigued with Cleaning Piece III, wondering what it would be like to NOT say anything negative about anybody. Would…
Read MoreTime Off…via George Booth and Yoko Ono
Sometimes Improvised Life is like this George Booth cartoon. RELAX A LITTLE, yells Improvised Life, in its well-meaning, demanding way. Then we saw Yoko Ono’s lovely sign
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