We found this startling image on Roy Arden’s blog...as usual, no provenance. Oh, but the beauty you can create with some mud and a (Coke) bottle…like this curiously chic, modernist pattern stenciled right on.
(We love the idea of our bodies as a canvas).
Related posts: body as artist’s canvas
“why doesn’t everybody paint their own shoes?”
role model: lucien freud, 82, painting
the scar project
focus!!!! (an instant tattoo)
body as artist’s canvas
We discovered RydeSafe Reflective Bike Decals via Better Living Through Design and quickly pledged to the RydeSafe Kickstarter project. These great-looking decals were designed by Tonky, an artist from Brooklyn who was hit by car and set out to make something that would keep him and other bikers safe while riding at night. The stickers are made from a film that reflects light (called conspicuity film), and are made to fit bike rims and frames, as well as helmets and accessories. The effect is quite striking, and makes you impossible to miss.
We love the mix of design and safety, but also think that these would make a great gifts for kids. We’re imagining walls and toys and clothes read more…
The Irish Times reported an amazing story of a 100 year-old letter to Santa found tucked in a Dublin chimney. It was found by the house’s current occupant, John Byrne, who works in the building industry.
“At that time, the fireplaces were made of brick with a shelf on either side,” Byrne. “The letter was found on one of the shelves.”
It makes some simple, very specific requests: read more…
Keeping perspective during the holiday season’s flurry of buying can be difficult. While gift-giving is a lovely tradition, so many of us get caught up in the “keeping up with the Joneses”-style of shopping: buying the newest, neatest toy/appliance/Apple product to keep pace with our consumption-centric world. The shopping-cynic in us was thus delighted by “The 5 Best Toys of All Time” featured in Wired’s GeekDad column. They include:
Both funny and true, full of examples of the amazing things you can make out of these simple elements, the piece reminds us that the holiday shopping frenzy isn’t actually necessary. While we’re not suggesting anyone fill a Christmas stocking with dirt (although it would make a mean mud pie), it doesn’t take a fancy new toy to give someone a meaningful gift. This is why we love to give presents people can make things with or use, like. Here’s a list of 12 favorites, swell given singly or in combination: read more…
photo: trevor romain
After we posted a series of pictures of people leaping and flying – one of our favorite images and ‘the improvised life’s mascot – illustrator/motivational speaker Trevor Romain sent us this image for our collection. He took a picture of a father throwing his son into the air in shallow water in Hawaii and realized it looked like the child is flying. Indeed he is, completely relaxed, trusting, and happy.
THAT’S how we want to fly………
….try……
Thanks a million Trevor!
Related posts: keep flying!
fly! (merce cunningham)
practice flying (via the uganda skateboard union)
help us fly!
free-flying
welcome to ‘the improvised life’
With the holidays fast approaching, everyone we know is starting their annual scramble to find great gifts. We’ve always felt that books make the best children’s presents. Over the years we’ve posted some of our favorites, all of which encourage creative thinking. From surprising cookbooks to clever craft projects, we highly recommend these six books to inspire your child’s inner artist. Click through the links below to read our posts about each one and order from Amazon, starting with The Donut Chef by Bob Staake ( buy it here)… read more…
photo: lauren malkasian
Film Maker/ProducerLauren Malkasian recently sent us this email:
“We love your daily inspirations and have very much been taken, moved and forever changed by ‘the improvised life’; it’s like a magic tonic everyday. So here is a little something from us, all the way from LA, that we thought you might enjoy.
We live on a street just out side Griffith Park. Our house is set on a hill and our daughter along with most of the kids in our neighborhood have little or no yard space to play in so she came up with this… read more…
If you’re a kid, one of the pleasures of trick-or-treating is AFTERWARDS, when you’ve got a big stash of candy. Maria Robledo sent us this photo of her daughte Isabel’s haul: “she organizes her Halloween catch & stashes it conveniently under the couch for easy access while reading…”
We envy that very cagey strategy…
Related posts: posters on the ceiling!
playing, dreaming, improvising
a cool way to free up the creative process
We’ve written before about how much we love Made By Joel’s, Joel Henrique’s website that features his charming handmade children’s toys. This October 11th will mark the release of Joel’s first book, Made to Play!: Handmade Toys and Crafts for Growing Imaginations
photo: maria robledo
My fondness for French fries is ruled by an idiosyncratic logic that, for a while, made them mostly off-limits. It goes something like this: perfectly-fried French fries are rare even in restaurants. At home they are daunting: hours of fry-o-lator air lingering in the apartment, and a quart or two of hot fat to discard. Because they are deep-fried and fattening, they must be really superb to be worth eating….
Those constraints sent me on a mission to find a way to achieve the divine effect and flavor of REAL French fries without either the mess, ‘fry’-ladened air, or the dietary wallop. Even if they weren’t more healthful, I’d take my fries, made in the oven, over most of the fries I find in restaurants any day.
It took me a while to figure out just how to push my oven fries beyond just-okay, half-too-crisp, half-limp ersatz fries that many recipes yield. The secret: Roast them in a hot oven for most of the time, then turn the oven down to dry the interiors out just enough to be truly fry-like. Use the right potato. And the right fat. That’ll give you a truly fry-like fry, perfect alongside a roast chicken or steak, or to dunk in a soft-cooked egg for breakfast.
Here’s the thinking behind, and a recipe for, crisp, deeply satisfying oven fries with lots of opportunities for improvising: read more…
artwork: miranda july
We’ve loved Miranda July’s work for a long time because her work always directly addressed the INSIDE of our heads, all those crazy voices and opinions and questions that take up so much space, and are really NOT who we are. Suddenly she’s become pretty famous because of the Future, her recent film that is getting a lot of attention. Despite all the hubbub, she’s still creating heartening cut-to-the-truth treasures, like this one. We want to stand on that pedestal that says “Self doubt will never devour your dreams”; we think one should be on every street corner.
Miranda July’s site YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT has a wonderfully clever homepage…worth checking out.
Related posts: the decision of your lifetime (miranda july)
miranda july’s perfect, rule-breaking website
andrea zittel’s investigative living
For a fat, liberating dose of inspiration, check out the long riff on Mondoblogo of chairs Italian Designer Gaetano Pesce painted in the nineties for his kids.
His “Open Sky” chairs are out-there, fun, wild, loose, and awesomely beautiful… read more…
Yann Gross
We thought we’d post this beautiful Yann Gross photo we stumbled on a while ago as an inspiring image unto itself, to ‘Practice Flying’. Then we decided to look into the story behind it.
We discovered that it is from a series of photographs Gross made about a hand-built skateboard park in Uganda. So smitten were the penniless kids of Kitintale with skateboarding that they figured out a way to build a rudimentary park themselves. Their passion for skateboarding has transformed their rough lives. Now the skateboard park is in need of repair so Gross made this video, telling the story and hoping to raise money (which you can do here).
It has many lovely moments, a lot of joy, great music and a huge amount of resourcefulness and inspiration. read more…
(Turn the sound off to really SEE what’s inside this book.—The Management (Video link here.)
I was a child who drew inside the lines. I kept journals as a kid and, if I accidentally skipped a page, I would rip out the blank page rather than have an entry appear out of order. Only recently as a young-ish adult have I grown comfortable with the risk of something like—gasp!—going off-recipe. Clearly, they didn’t have books like Beautiful Oops!
This kids’ book by Barney Saltzberg, follows a simple, but for some, very challenging philosophy: “When you think you have made a mistake, think of it as an opportunity to make something.” read more…
