The other day we got an email from our friend A.S.C. Rower, President of the Calder Foundation (we know him as Sandy). It’s subject line read: “More Noise Please!” The title of a poem by the late Steven J. Bernstein, a mutual friend, was the go-ahead for ‘the improvised life’ to feature posts about Rower’s grandfather, Alexander Calder, an idea that’s been in the works for a while. Calder, one of the 20th century’s greatest artists, known for his monumental and kinetic sculptures and mobiles, was possibly one of the world’s most inspired and relentless improvisers. When Sandy heard of ‘the improvised life’s mission, he thought it would be a fine fit.
We thought we’d start our ongoing Calder theme by featuring some pictures of the Calder Foundation space, excerpted from the current World of Interiors. They were made by another close friend and frequent contributor, Maria Robledo (who photographed all of Sally’s books, including The Improvisational Cook). The space, in New York’s Chelsea, houses a vast archive of Calder’s life and work including the ongoing catalogue raisonné, and supports the Foundation’s mission to deepen understanding of Calder’s work and scholarly work; it is not yet open to the public. (Note: The images published here are scans of the magazine and hence don’t have the luminosity of Robledo’s originals.)
We got A LOT of inspiration from the article and our recent visit to the foundation which affirmed our central operating principle: that an improvisational environment begets an improvisational mindset…read more…
Nannucci is known for his luminous neon writings. Check out the mind-altering digital companion piece to the work above. The constantly changing line at the top resonates big time:
…”another notion of possibility”…
……..”nothing new to say but something to say in a new way”…
…decouvrir different directions”…
…….”new worlds are dark as long as they are not lighted”…
We wish we could light them up in colors in this post as they light us up inside.
Every once in a while, when we need a little perspective, we check into the Scale of the Universe website, created by Cary and Michael Huang. Move the slider from left to right and back to be reminded where you stand in the scheme of things, and of just what mysteries are out/in here. Here it is in flash.
“my basic principle is: i start from an idea and from the material. it is not fixed which of the two comes in the first place. for me, sculpture begins before design. when i speak of sculpture i think of material, form, mass, process and the location.”
Rückriemon’s is a slightly different approach than Albers’ perhaps; it also requires the ability to LISTEN…to hear and follow ideas.
We view listening as a practice, something that might not come easily at first. It can be like identifying a sound in the distance…gradually, through practice, it becomes clearer and clearer, as we cultivate our ability to hear … read more…
We stumbled on this lovely 3 minutes with Laurie Anderson, and found it calmed us and made us THINK. (We also loved seeing her cooled out, very real space). It was made by Dropping Knowledge.org, a website that “invites you to question yourself and the world around you. Every time you ask yourself a question, a new dialogue begins…”
Anderson frames her question so perfectly, we won’t give it away. Here’s the book she mentions if you’re interested in pursuing the ideas: Within the Context of No Context by George W.S. Trow. Read it online here.
A recent issue of New York Magazine featured The New York City Apartment: A Biography, a trove of slideshows and features about the inside of living in New York. We especially love the slideshow called “The Perpetual Garret”, the apartments of some once-not-so-famous artists. Flavorwire took the idea and ran with it, to include the spaces of the acutely famous as well, like Marina Abramovic and Francis Bacon.
Our favorite is Beat writer William Burroughs’, a former locker room at the 222 Broadway YMCA, which he called ‘the Bunker: a typewriter on a table, chair, bed, coat.
We culled some swell decorating ideas, like Karl Lagerfeld showing how to make a HUGE book collection graphic and beautiful rather than overwhelming: read more…
MANY years ago, when we barely knew who Anni Albers was, we clipped a quote of hers from a magazine, and have had it on our fridge ever since. It is faded and yellowed, but resonates as strongly as ever:
“Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials.”
The idea of ”listening” to materials, to what wants to be done, is an essential part of improvising. It can take practice, but we find that as you do it, you cultivate an ability to hear… read more…
We’ve just returned from a visit to Helvetia, West Virginia where two dear friends had passed away within a couple of weeks of each other. Both lived long amazingly rich lives that touched a great many people. We came home tired, thoughtful, amazed, sad, inspired…and slowly started back to work on ‘the improvised life’. As often happens, we stumbled on something that resonated deeply with what we’d been thinking about: Candy Chang’s public art project Before I Die. Chang found a derelict building in New Orleans, painted its sides with chalkboard paint and stenciled the question “Before I die I want to____________” ; she left spaces for people to fill in with chalk. Says Chang:
“It’s a question that has changed me in the last year, and I believe the design of our public spaces can better reflect what’s important to us as residents and as human beings. The responses and stories from passersby while we were installing it have already hit me hard in the heart.” read more…
Design Thought Leader posts daily quotes by some of the world’s most compelling thought leaders. We find them both inspiring and illuminating, and like this one, often heartening:
“…we have no real choice in the matter. The voice in our heads won’t shut up until we discover if we’re right, if we can do it, if we can make something happen.”
That’s totally what we’re doing at ’the improvised life…no choice in the matter..have to!
We’ve been listening to Homeland, Laurie Anderson‘s great-to-work-to album. The track “Only an Expert” (short version below) reminded us of one of our favorite videos, Jerry-Rigging, reprised from an early, experimental, now-defunct section of ‘the improvised life’. read more…
We find the natural world is a good source of design inspiration…like this Eighty-Eight Butterfly (Diaethria neglecta) from Brazil’s Pantanal with it’s a sensational design of lines and dots.
We stumbled on this image of the great architect Le Corbusier painting a fresco in the nude. in Le Corbusier: A Life. He was staying at legendary architect Eileen Gray‘s Villa E-1027 in St. Tropez, in 1927. You can almost feel the Mediterranean breezes.
To us, it is a reminder of “flow”, of following ideas spontaneously and just doing them, in whatever state you are in, in the moment, and enjoying its pleasures…
….jump out of bed and start working, dressed in a tee shirt or…nothing if the situation allows…
We recommend turning off the sound and playing both videos at the same time. We came upon them when we were reading blogs the other morning, and were blown away by this kismet-ish reminder of simultaneity.
Jack Nicholson, the actor, said he wished everyday life were like making a movie so when you messed up you could say, “Take two,” and have a whole other chance.
“That’s not a bug; that’s a feature” is an old computer programmer’s saying.
Markus Persson, in writing in the February 2011 Game Developers magazine about making his computer game “Minecraft” didn’t quote the saying, but did illustrate it. He said when he tried to make some pigs, they came out looking like “tall pillars with short stumpy legs,” and they moved very oddly. He colored them green, and called them creepers. Some people like them so much they’ve become a symbol of the game to fans.
I think I miss some feature opportunities when something doesn’t come out like I planned. I get annoyed at my lack of total foresight and control. Meanwhile, I could be asking questions forward. What color? Give what this is now, what is its true name?
Here’s the original pig model that ended up becoming the creeper (above): read more…
We love this bed made of shipping pallets that the endlessly clever Swedish designer Maliin Stoor built for her daughters: a chain of LEDs illuminates it from underneath. Here are details, translated from Swedish (we hope accurately enough):
“Lights under the bed…Inspired by a hotel I recently stayed in…I bought a light chain and put it under the bed. (When we cast the concrete slab we made sure to fix a number of electrical plugs in the floors, even one under the bed. I felt smart!) The girls think it’s really nice and hoped that the loop shone all night, but the loop is set on a timer and is on from five o’clock to half-eleven; it works for us …” read more…
by George W.S. Trow. Read it online 
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