This photo of members of the Seattle Tubing Society in full float made us WANT to be invited to a tubing party. If we were near a river or lake, we’d give one ourselves…What could be more delightful than lazily bobbing along with friends on a warm summer day? It seems that tubing parties were quite a thing in the forties and fifties…
…dig this flotilla of happy souls… read more…
(Video link here.) Dig this video made by composer Diego Stocco in conjunction with Burt’s Bees. Stocco creates a great beat, simply by shaking tree branches, flicking orange peels, banging on coconuts, mashing his hands through cooked rice, and sifting his hands through almonds – all amplified. Even the buzz of bees make an appearance. Just a reminder that you can find (and make) music anywhere.
And the beat goes on…. read more…
April is the time when ramps – wild leeks – appear throughout the Appalachian and Catskill mountains, one of the first edible harbingers of spring. Then they start hitting farmer’s markets. Since the pungent leek is one of the most delicious and transformative foods we know of, we’re reprising past posts about the famous lily, along with our best ways of cooking/eating them: read more…
photo: sally schneider
Our friend Maria Robledo has an ever-improvisational way with “flower” arranging. Here, she cut sprigs of a fragrant vine from her garden and arranged them running down the center of her dinner table, placing the cut ends in shallow ceramic bowls of water to keep them fresh. Perfect. Come to think of it, jar lids, especially the glass lids from French canning jars would work as well….
Related posts: d-i-y: bubble-wrapped vase full of flowers
dill weed (and other edible) flower arrangements
improv flower arrangement: pond in a vase
guerilla florist bella meyer: “flowers as natural art supplies”
vase-less flower arrangement (right on the table)
alt flower arrangement: a little vase of herbs
little makeshift vases
(Video link here.) Cara de Silva sent us an email with this video and one sentence: “Four plus minutes of extraordinary nourishment for the mind, eyes, and heart.”
We thought it would make a fabulous breakfast/start to your day, in the first days of Spring. (We found it to be even lovelier with the corny violins off.)
Note: Wait just a few seconds to close the annoying ad.
Thanks a million, Cara!
Related posts: a leaf becomes an artwork (you can make art anywhere)
nature walk: the transforming owl
myeongbeom kim’s forest bed
theo jansen’s ‘life forms’ evolve!
weekend nature walk: ant architecture
nature walk: aurora borealis
the genetic code of everyday things
thomas ashcraft: artist as electroreceptor
We’ve been so impressed with Jim Denevan’s amazing sand and snow creations, that we forgot he’s also is the mastermind of a fantastic traveling food project. Outstanding in the Field is a “roving culinary adventure” meant to connect people to the land where their food originates and the people who work hard to produce it.
Outstanding in the Field creates pop-up food happenings at farms and ranches (and other scenic delights) across the country. They set up a long table that sits over 100 guests, and local chefs work their magic to prepare four-course meals using entirely local meat and produce. There is nothing like the experience of sitting down to eat on the land from which your food has come. Their 2012 schedule has just been announced, so you can check and see if they will be coming to a town near you. read more…
andrea branzi @ carpenters workshop gallery, paris
Recently, we’ve seen bundles of birch logs being sold at delis around New York City: cheap enough for an evening’s cozy fire. Since we don’t have a fireplace, we’ve admired them as a lovely, elemental raw material – right on our doorstep – and mulled what we could do with them; we’ve been meaning to buy a pack just to have and see where they took us.
This morning we came across this shelving unit designed by architect Andrea Branzi - a simple birch log inserted into a simple black bookshelf, that makes for a charming and surprising visual.
So now we ARE going to go out and buy some logs before they’re gone with winter. read more…
Julie Houston, a reader who turned us on to that incredible Zorba the Greek video we posted a while back, recently sent this quote by sculptor Isamu Noguchi that she saw on a visit to Storm King Art Center, in a work called Momotaro.
The nine-part, 40-ton stone sculpture provides seating atop a hill with sweeping views of the Art Center fields, creating a functional spaces for personal interaction. While gathering the stones for the piece near his studio on the island of Shikoku in Japan, Noguchi managed to split a huge boulder; it reminded him of Momotaro, an ancient Japanese folk hero who was born from a peach pit. The intrepid Sarah M. patiently transcribed a handwritten letter the artist wrote describing how he created it:
Having embarked on a carving of granite so easily recognized as belonging to myth, there was nothing to do but follow the instructive and not premeditated promptings the composition came to demand. Quite different from the vague idea I had in mind. It forced its way, even to the discovery of the peach pit into which a person may crawl, there to meditate inside the sculpture reverberating with the Buddhist word OM.
A place to go to. It may also be recognized as a metaphor for man as end and as beginning, a mirror to the passage of the sun. read more…
viki2win/Shutterstock
In last month’s Atlantic, Sara Jenkins tells the story of her family’s annual olive harvest in Tuscany, which is, ultimately about taking risks and learning as you go. The Jenkins family has a rich history in food–Sara runs Porchetta and Porsena in New York City, and her mother Nancy Harmon Jenkins is the author of six cookbooks. Nancy and I spent some time traveling together in Italy, and I remember her always being game to drive off check out a market she’d heard of or wander into new places in search of adventure. It’s not surprising to me that Nancy and her family would take on the task of growing and harvesting olive trees, an indisputable challenge. read more…
(Video link here.) It’s been an eerily snow-less winter in New York City. With the exception of a single January snowfall there has been nothing—and we kind of miss it. This post is in honor of the snow we think may be on its way…and the possibilities it brings with it.
We wrote a couple of summers ago about artist Jim Denevan and his large-scale sand drawings which totally transformed how we think about playing in the sand. Now our attention has been called to his work with snow and ice. In 2010, Denevan made the largest piece of artwork in the world on the surface of Lake Baikal in Siberia. This nine-mile spiral of circles over the ice is stunning and allows us to once again completely re-imagine the possibilities of using snow as/in art. read more…
photo: stefano boeri architetti
We’re just a few days into 2012, but apparently the future is already here. Our resident futurist, Stuart Mason Dambrot, sent us a bunch of amazing and fun science and technology finds, making us wonder what the next year has in store for all of us.
We’ve talked about vertical gardens, but a vertical forest takes the idea to a whole other level. This 27 story forest designed by Stefano Boeri is currently under construction in Milan. We wonder about the ecosystems that will develop in a man-made vertical forest?… read more…
(Video link here.) This video features the great natural history documentarian, Sir David Attenborough, reading lines from the Louis Armstrong song “What a Wonderful World” as stunning scenes from Attenborough’s documentaries fill the screen. While we watched, we were both delighted and a bit stymied. The video was both beautiful and perspective-broadening, while bordering on being precious and slightly manipulative. It was in fact made by the ad agency RKCR/Y&RH as a tribute to the aging Attenborough and a promo piece for his latest, and possibly last series, Frozen Planet. That explains alot.
As often happens, we held off on posting it until something came along to point it in an unexpected direction. We found it on the strange and beautiful blog Rolu, in a poem by James Broughton. If you mute the video’s corny soundtrack and keep the poem in mind as you watch, you get a WHOLE other experience…
photo: mats almlö
From National Geographic’s 2010 Photography Contest. Perfect for now. We like remembering Christmas trees in the wild as we see them all spruced up around town.
via The Big Picture
dargelosny.tumblr.com/
On Dargelos’ Tumblr, we found this picture with a mysterious caption: “Leaf art found in Prospect Park.”
It seemed too simple to be true. This leaf sculpture was so beautiful, we wanted to know more of the story. So we emailed Dargelos and asked. Right away, we got an answer:
“We were literally just walking through the park, about to exit and Max noticed it at our feet. It broke soon after : ( “
So we wrote back: “Was it just made of leaf? It looks almost like it had been gold leafed… wonder if someone was just hanging around and took a knife or swiss army knife to it..” read more…
This artwork by Marlo Pascual reminded us how great a big rock can be to display stuff, especially this carefully balanced photograph. Perfect.
It called to mind the boulders Russel Wright used to prop up a red-painted sideboard read more…
