We’ve gotten quite a few email submissions from our readers lately, along with a stead uptick in traffic. Yaye. Or should we say YUM, the beautiful fragment of type Maria Robledo’s daughter Isabel created. At bottom, a shipping pallet that’s been transformed into an artwork by Mexican artist and reader Mary Carmen. You can see the process at her Flickr.
But what really knocks us out are letters from readers – some who have had to deal with serious life transitions’ – saying how much ‘the improvised life’ resonates with them…and how they are using its message to expand their own life and work. Instead of crumpling, they’re rising to the challenges, thinking in new ways. Like this one from Tina Juvonen in Seattle:read more…
Last Fourth of July, Antonia LoPresti sent us an email about the emergency improv she came up with for her daughter Sofia:
After an impromptu dip in the Washington square park fountain, Sofia’s skirt was soaked. A hunt to find a children’s shop yielded no luck SO I took my cardigan sweater out of my bag, buttoned it up and wrapped it around her as a skirt.
It does have a curiously chic Rick Owens-ish look to it. Just for the hell of it, we did a google search to see if we could find any fashionistas who’d tried such daring. It seems that wearing cardigans backwards is as far as things go… read more…
(Video link here.) A writer we know confessed her method to us: when she was blocked, she just lay down and read something completely unrelated until she fell asleep. It’s like shutting down a computer. When she woke up, she’d usually be able to continue her work.
OMG, we do that too! We were SO happy to hear it, our nap breaks always having come with soupçon of guilt, as essential as we know them to be. When you’re doing creative work, sometimes the answers – or results – just come slowly, and you need to get your focus off them.
This video is another “retreat” we found useful. read more…
A Mexican Day of the Dead smoking shrine found in Oaxaca Mexico – note the cigarettes on top.
I have not smoked for eleven years – it’s working!
We know quite a few people who have created personal shrines over the years: arrangements of privately meaningful and sacred objects, quotes, images that remind, give power, hold an intention or a wish…
..like this one of a friend; it changes every once-in-a-while: the placement of elements shift, new pieces are added in. Anything can be a shrine: the configuration and meaning in the eyes – and heart – of the maker. read more…
Last weekend, we had a friend over for dinner, to hang out in the new space. Toward the end of a long evening of talking and eating, we both happened to look over at the kitchen counter at the same time and said in unison: “Look at that still life!”
It was though someone had snuck in and arranged it while we were busy looking at the sunset. (It has a faint air of an opera.)
But, really, these little miracles happen all over the place — combinations of intention and just living.
We spotted this one on during the renovation of the space, when it was still all torn apart: read more…
Intrigued by a brief mention on her website of her renovated log cabin in Montana, we wrote designer Laura Handler to ask if we could see some pictures of the place. We not only got pictures with charming, haiku-like notations, but the wonderful story behind the cabin:
Fourteen years ago, my mother died and left me a Toyota Corolla with 15 thousand miles on it, and I decided to learn how to drive. As soon as I got my license, I took off a year to drive across the country. By the end of my voyage, I had bought a log cabin and 20 acres in Pray, Montana. No one was more surprised than I.
I wanted the perfect “weekend” getaway from New York City where – excepting for a few years in Milan – I had lived for my entire adult life.
Its resulting design has evolved – as I have – to become an stew of indigenous influences, incongruous cultures, and things that I love.
Inspired by Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation that I visited on my drive, I added a austere and minimalist 1000 square foot cedar plank deck to the cabin.I cut through the log walls in the bedroom and studio, and added large sliding glass doors to the deck. I had all of the old wall to wall carpeting and linoleum ripped up, the particle board subflooring sanded smooth, and the entire floor epoxied bright white.
It feels more like a log apartment than a cabin. Or a log loft. A Gloft?
Handler’s notations, room-by-room, give an idea of her sensibility, process, and resourcefulness: read more…
The other day walking in a nearby park early one morning, we came upon a line of swings – big kid’s swings – in a playground. So we thought ‘Why not?‘ and did what we hadn’t done in many many years: swung HIGH looking at up at trees and sky.
When designer Laura Handler sent us word of her new blog, Interesting Found Objects, we instantly started poking around. We love Unmentionables, her latest post, with a divine, mind-boggling Japanese condom package-design. Then we flew to her website to find out about her. We looked at her designs and was smitten with her stacking, interlocking votive candle holders that could be configured in endless ways.
Such a simple and smart idea. We tried stacking our own votives to realize that executing this clever idea really takes a great deal of thought and consideration: so that the flames don’t touch the neighboring votives and possibly crack them; that they interlock so as not to come crashing down…We were reminded that good design only looks simple, and works really well.
The other day, we got a snail mail note from a friend. While snail mail is inself a rare gift these days, there was an added surprise. When we opened the envelope, a cascade of pressed flowers fell out. In addition to bringing a charming blast of ‘garden’ into the apartment, the flowers were like little symbols of care and regard; our friend had taken the time to press the flowers and thoughtfully include them in her note.
We loved it. Pressing flowers (and leaves) is easy: you pick them, dry them, press them sandwiched between clean sheets of paper in a thick heavy book. Time does the rest. (There’s a great visual how-to here.)
But really, this is about the possibilities for enclosing surprises in a note or letter, that give it a totally “other” dimension. read more…
Maria Robledo sent us a link to Under the Sun, Roy Arden’s brilliant visual blog, which we are fans of but hadn’t looked at in some time; there’s ALWAYS something compelling there. This time, we found a picture of women wearing wondrous head dresses made of wrapped fabric. ‘We need to be able to do that’ we thought, and looked up how to make fab hats with a piece of fabric. Here are two short, curiously charming how-to’s to set you on the path (with the women, above, as further inspiration for improvising…a LONG swath of striped fabric folded lengthwise and warpped overlappingly). read more…
(Video link here.) David Saltman sent us this video with the message “YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS”. And he was right, despite its 13 minutes, which is long for us. This 60 Minute profile tells the story of pianist Derek Paravicini who is blind, with disabilities so severe, he can’t tell his right hand from his left. But man, is this a story of unexpected redemption, of extraordinary gifts that can lie hidden in what may have seemed to a be profoundly limited life. It took a young piano teacher who ‘saw’ and nurtured Derek’s musical language, never imagining quite where it would lead.
It was raining late this afternoon as we sat writing in ‘the improvised life’s laboratory‘ with the terrace door open. Suddenly we heard the joyous sound of a full-on gospel choir coming through the trees of the Harlem park we look out on. We went out onto the terrace to see who was singing. Instead we saw a lone man sitting under an umbrella (which is there, though it blends with the surroundings) on a bench in the park, taking a moment to enjoy the soft rain and the music reverating through the wet leaves.
