photo: maria robledo
Our friend Maria Robledo sent this photo with the words “Color inspiration”. It was a two-fer gift: a virtual bunch of flowers AND a color combo we couldn’t imagine otherwise (for wall or floor or…) …that has us looking around… read more…
revolver.com
We recently discovered Easy Home Tricks, a pinterest board from Remodeleze.com. A lot of DIY home sites involve repurposing everything to the point of absurdity, but while this board has a little of that - covers up a bathrooms window??!! - for the most part it’s extremely USEFUL. We think of it as a more modern Hints from Heloise.
So far we’ve discovered a lot of great everyday home solutions, many of them ‘green’, including read more…
visualphotos.com
Yesterday afternoon, I looked at the massive to-do list that would keep me working into the evening and…actually for days – an impossible amount of tasks from writing posts to the endless details of moving to tending an elderly mom’s affairs.
I wondered if there was another way to be handling things that allowed for more spaciousness, and made a mental note to test out more deeply some of the methods we’ve posted about here (busyness being a state that seems to affect just about everybody these days). Then I continued to barrel through a very scheduled day. Until late evening when suddenly CRASH, life slammed into the control tower!
yves klein
We’ve always loved Yves Klein‘s shirt printed with hand prints, foot prints and question marks: a mysteriously chic, primal cosmic design that makes us want to get some plain white shirts and paint whatever comes to mind. It would be like wearing a flag of a personal country.
Mondoblogo reminded us of it.
Related posts: photo of the day: ‘leap into the void’
what helps you see things differently?
65 modern art books online…for free!
the brilliant past: poster dress with a ginsberg poem
photo: Bob Carey
We couldn’t say what it is about this man in a tutu that we find so powerful. Like a lot of art, it seems to possess it’s own language and logic. The story behind it remains somewhat mysterious: Bob Carey first took a portrait of himself in a pink tutu in an effort to express himself after he and his wife, Linda, had moved to New York.
Why? Because even though the move was exciting, exhilarating, and inspiring, it was 180 degrees from what I knew. So I took the old, mixed it in with the new, and the kept the tutu handy.
Six months later he discovered his wife had breast cancer. The tutu portraits became a way to bring some laughter and joy to a dark situation, a symbol of solidarity, and ultimately, as The Tutu Project, a campaign to raise money for breast cancer research. read more…
piotr redlinski for the new york times
The most inspiring article in last weekend’s New York Times was about Chris Hackett and his workshop in Gowanus, the epicenter of Brooklyn’s burgeoning underground of artists, inventors, chefs, carpenters, urban gardeners, hackers, fabricators, scavengers, repurposers, live-free-or-die,and prepare-for-the-shit-to-hit-the-fan proponents.
On Chris Hackett’s personal periodic table, the world’s most interesting, and abundant, substance is an element he calls obtainium. Things classified as obtainium might include the discarded teapot that he once turned into a propane burner, or the broken beer bottle he used to make a razor, or the 9-millimeter shell casings he acquired some time ago, melted in a backyard foundry (also made of obtainium) and cast into brass knuckles for a girlfriend.
Hacket has been described as a “ master improviser…It’s almost like he thinks with his hands”, and his workshop, an obtainium mine, rich with materials for making: read more…
“Keep on the Sunny Side”, written in 1899 by Ada Blenkhorn, made famous by The Carter Family…
…if that’s not your cup of tea, let Louis C.K. inspire you to ROCK OUT (even if everyone else thinks you’re an idiot) read more…
joel henriques
On the great blog Made by Joel, when we found a post that began: “I was drawing…just for fun.” We love to hear about people experimenting, with no particular destination in mind. In the end, he took one of the drawings and turned it into a little pillow for one of his kids.
He also mentioned his favorite fabric pens
photo: peggy markel
Our intrepid friend Peggy Markel just arrived in India to prepare to lead one of her amazing culinary adventures, Tasting Royal Rajasthan. She sent us this amazing picture of an ironing board computer table and the story behind it:
“We’re staying with a new friend, Rajiv Jani, friend of a friend. It is his rig, was already here. I knew you would love it. I thought to call it ‘permanent press’. Here’s how it came about:
Rajiv lived in Atlanta for 10 years and had all of his stuff shipped back to Delhi. He set up the ironing board in a spare room for his ironing. But he found out that he could have his shirts ironed for 2 rupees each. (1/2 a penny.) 25 shirts? $1.00.
He was looking for a place to set up his home computer and set a few things down on the ironing board until he found the right place. His electronics started growing there as that was where the internet connection was and the wiring was getting too complicated to move.To buy a new table from Ikea would cost $150. Then you need a chair. read more…
Last week Mondoblogo posted two photos taken at Art Basel of wonderful geometrically-painted walls with doors (they are part of the blog’s illuminating challenge to identify what is actual “art” and what is not). The top is “Final Cut” by artist Ernst Caramelle. The second “a random door”…
We’re putting them in our file of cool ideas for painting a room with a door. read more…
photo: herbert matter, courtesy of the calder foundation
Of all the brilliant artists we feature on ‘the improvised life’, Alexander Calder holds a special place in our hearts. In addition to his monumental artworks and legendary mobiles, he was a prolific creator of household objects for everyday use. If he or his wife Louisa or a friend needed something utilitarian, he would devise a solution on the spot, with whatever was at hand.
The trove of his improvisations is vast and inspiring; each invites rethinking of common objects we often take for granted: tin cans, pie tins, wire, bits of scrap wood. His creations were not only useful, but visually stunning.
Here is the artist telling how he created a barbeque grill out of an iron garden chair after his son-in-law Jean Davidson invited a horde of people over for a party: read more…
reuben miller
At the end of designer Reuben Miller‘s clever riff on the extreme repurposing movement, some readers commented that that a fly swatter face protector and a paint brush door stop were “stupid’; other’s thought Dada. Some, like us, dug the IDEA that you can make something out of just about anything.
But we fell in love with one repurposing idea for real: stamps as nail “polish”. We’d just come back from the post office where we’d bought some pretty groovy stamps: a tiny Edward Hopper sailboat scene: read more…
myeongbeom kim
myeongbeom kim
Conceptual Artist Myeongbeom Kim makes eerily beautiful and evocative work that fuses manmade things with big doses of nature. We can totally see ourselves lying down on this bed, and feeling like we are in a mossy woods…
…we can imagine how we’d feel riding an elevator like this one: read more…
(Video link here.) Our friend Maureen Rolla sent us this email; it is so expressive, it became a post:
“I am writing to tell you about a person and documentary that you should know about – it is called “Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio” – about an amazing architect, thinker, dreamer who ran a program called the Rural Studio at Auburn University in which architecture students designed and built homes, churches, and other structures for the residents of the very poor Hale County, Alabama. It is perhaps the best statement about the transformative power of architecture on regular human beings lives that I’ve ever seen (as opposed to big name, star power architecture that pretty much only benefits the star architect…) The students use some ordinary materials (hay bales, tires) in innovative ways to create some simple yet soaring projects. The film is available on Netflix (disk only, unfortunately). Unfortunately Mockbee died in 2001, only in his early 60s.”
We found a trailer for Citizen Architect (above) that makes us hungry to see the film. Check out this moving interview with Mockbee read more…
(Video link here).We have long admired musician/artist Björk, so were happy to stumble on this YouTube video of her giving a house tour, even though it’s clearly years old and from another era of her life. No matter; it is so full of quirky charm and ideas, it seemed like a fitting post to come back with.
We also recommend checking out Björk’s website. The first page is really beautiful, and there’s a compelling little track of her speaking that you can click on at the bottom…
