signs
Jody Brown/Coffee by an Architect
…good ideas…bad ideas…doubt…more doubt…no, no, no….fear…talent…self-loathing…concepts…scribbles… imagination…
What a mash-up!
Anyone we know?
….Meanwhile, what about that left brain/right brain thing? read more…
05.02.13 |
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in signs |
We are constantly knocked out by the wonderful endeavors our readers are involved in, committed to, CREATED out of nothing, improvised. Here are a few from the past week:
David Downie and Alison Harris set out from their home in Paris to walk across France to the Pyrenees, the French portion of El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. David wrote about the journey and Alison photographed it in Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James
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David was interviewed by NPR. When asked what he found, out came this fab nugget:
I talked to a monk in a monastery … and I asked him, ‘You see tens of thousands of people coming through here; is there one thing that unites us all that we all have in common, whether we’re atheists or believers?’ And he said, ‘Yes, actually there is. Anyone who does this pilgrimage — or any pilgrimage — is driven by an irresistible urge to do it, and they don’t know where it comes from. And sometimes they figure it out while they’re walking, or afterward, or never.’ And, you know, the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. I set out with a zillion questions in my head, and I didn’t come back with a lot of answers; I came back with more questions. But I really do think that the question is the answer. read more…
04.26.13 |
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in art, inspiration blogs + sites, inspiration books + zines, paths + processes, people, signs, video |
When we were first planning ‘the improvised life’, we were inspired by this now-famous set of rules by Sister Corita Kent, artist and renown educator. They speak directly to the process of creating…ANYTHING. Here are our favorite essential rules:
Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
Consider everything as an experiment.
Nothing is a mistake. There’s no Win and no Fail. There’s only Make.
The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something…
Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
And finally, Kent quotes this beauty by John Cage: read more…
04.22.13 |
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in art, paths + processes, people, rules for living, signs |
?
When we first saw this sign, we though ‘Yeah, for sure’. Then we started thinking more critically about fear and realized it is not always a bad thing. We searched “antidote to fear” and found bits and pieces about love antidoting fear, and especially, being present antidoting fear. Then we stumbled on a rough draft of a speech called “The Mastery of Fear or Antidotes for Fear” by Martin Luther King Jr. in an archive at Stanford. Here’s an essential piece:
Fear is a powerfully creative force. read more…
04.04.13 |
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in principles, quotes, sightings, signs |
How to Be a Minimalist, Grant Snider‘s wise info-graphic (below) states “Less is more difficult than it looks“. I didn’t really understand this idea until I was costing out ‘the Laboratory’s renovation. In trying to implement some of the clean, minimalist design ideas I’d been collecting for years, I discovered that minimal is generally more expensive than ‘standard’. While it gives the illusion of simplicity and spare living, it can cost a lot, largely because the various disguises that hide ugly joints and inner workings are stripped away.
Take doors with no mouldings or visible hinges like the one above, for example. Since the jamb (the vertical portion of the frame onto which a door secured) bears the weight of the door through its hinges, its strength is vitally important to the operation and durability of the door. In traditional doorway treatments, the jamb is built into the wall around the door and then disguised by moulding which is simply tacked on, like this one: read more…
04.02.13 |
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in before + after, elements, inside, learn, paths + processes, signs, solutions |
Over the past several months, Pixar’s former story artist Emma Coates‘ 22 Rules of Good Storytelling has been flying around the web. Although we find it to be excellent advice for writers, we found annotating it made it even better: a list of fine life principles for any creative soul. Our favorite:
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
Here’s our annoted list made simply by substituting words specific-to-writing with more general ones.
You admire a character person for trying more than for their successes.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters elements. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character are you good at, comfortable with? Throw yourself the polar opposite at them. Challenge them yourself. How do theyyou deal? read more…
03.19.13 |
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in paths + processes, principles, quotes, signs |
K
“Rules are there to be broken” is one of our favorite operating principles. We’ve learned a HUGE amount from seeing what would happen if we “broke the rules” and did things differently from the norm. It’s a practice: questioning the rules with a big “WHY?” and then, when we have an idea, asking “Why not?” and trying it out.
About the time we found this great sign from Popular Lies About Graphic Design
, we heard that our friend Tom Ashcraft’s artwork was chosen to be in the illustrious Outsider Art Fair in New York City, which was recently covered by The Wall Street Journal:
Free from the weight of academic study and art history, so-called “outsider artists” operate with a certain cachet: they create in whatever form and with whatever method that moves them. Trained artists may claim to do the same, but they can become jet-setting sensations by breaking rules. When outsiders break rules, they do it without knowing that rules exist.
One essential trait of Outsider Art is that it is created by people read more…
02.05.13 |
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in art, outside, paths + processes, people, principles, quotes, signs |
We’ve been reading Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale
and stumbled on this amazing bit. No need to know the background. It rings big bells right on it’s own…
We’ve enjoyed this fatso novel immensely (except that it’s so heavy). Another favorite chunk is a list of dishes that are part of a rather crazed housekeeper’s repertoire: read more…
01.28.13 |
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in principles, quotes, signs |
We were reading a packed-full-of-revelations1992 interview with poet Gary Snyder when we came across this amazing, of-the-cuff line. What a concept! The context is his answer to the question about whether he’d work as Secretary of the Interior or other political post if asked:
I’ve never thought seriously about that question. Probably not, although I am foolish enough to think that if I did do it, I’d do it fairly well, because I’m pretty single-minded. But you don’t want to be victimized by your lesser talents. One of my lesser talents is that I am a good administrator, so I really have to resist being drawn into straightening things out. The work I see for myself remains on the mythopoetic level of understanding the interface of society, ecology, and language, and I think it is valuable to keep doing that.
The gist: Don’t let a not-terribly-important skill that you happen to be good at sidetrack the real work you need to do. How wise that guy is, always was…
In case you don’t know Snyder, here’s a couple of his poems that have much to do with how any creative work gets made. read more…
01.09.13 |
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in inspiration blogs + sites, media, paths + processes, people, quotes, rules for living, signs |
. He starts his day plan with a Principle — “…change the world and have one hell of a good time” — instead of a schedule, and knocks all the day-planning strategies and productivity experts on their heads. Yay!
