The Improvised Life

we’re moving!! (back next week)

Sally — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:23:34 +0000

The Internet and phone are turned off in our old place; we’re camping amidst boxes. Needless to say, posting has been erratic…we spent 15 hours yesterday at the new space wrangling electricians, Fios guys, handiman, rug delivery.

We’re both overwhelmed and excited by the impending move to new digs, ‘the improvised life’s ongoing work-in-progress, a move from pre-war to modern.

We’re going dark for a week or so while we get things organized…and our wit’s about us. See you soon.

And big thanks for all who wrote to wish us well on the new space.

Redefining home

Sally — Wed, 09 May 2012 01:33:02 +0000

(Video link here.) They say that moving homes is one of the most stressful of life events. We are finding that to be true, due to the sheer volume of details that makes up a life: it’s as though we’re in an avalanche, crushed by how much there is to do. Though we keep things pretty spare, we are wondering how things got so complex.

What if we didn’t have all this stuff and accounts and fierce need for HOME? It got us thinking about the video we saw recently about Daniel Suelo who one day decided to give up all money. He moved to the wilderness of southeastern Utah, where he makes a cave his home, foraging for food, living by his wits, creativity and the generosity of friends. Says Daniel:

My philosophy is to use only what is freely given or discarded, and whar is already present and already running.

We admire and are amazed by Daniel. He also makes us realize how much we LOVE and are grateful to have a space, a place…how much we are looking the new one (and path) we’ve been creating.

Via Open Culture

book giveaway: fridge pickles via ‘hip girls guide’…

Sally — Tue, 08 May 2012 02:18:19 +0000

photo: kate payne

Soon summer will be here, bringing with it a crop of cucumbers (and countless other vegetables) just waiting to be pickled. But for those who are intimidated by the process of water-bath canning for shelf storage (or who just want a crunchy fresh pickle!) there is an easy solution: spices, water, vinegar, salt, and two weeks in the fridge. We love the simplicity of Kate Payne’s Fridge Pickles 101. And that’s just one of many great, fun recipes included in her fab The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking. If you haven’t read about it already, we’re doing a free book giveaway this month. So if you’re hungry for more of Kate’s tips, simply leave a comment telling us what project around the house or in your garden you’re most looking forward to tackling this spring/summer. Make sure you do it by midnight on March 19, at which point we will randomly pick a winner.

Good luck!

sneak peek: improvised life’s new space + our cool optical illusion design solution

Sally — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:16:56 +0000

photo: sally schneider

I thought it would be fun to give a sneak peak of the new space I’ve been renovating – the secret project that has run me ragged for months. It will be a sort of laboratory for many ideas we want to explore on ‘the improvised life’. Although it will probably never be ;finished;, this before-and-after gives an idea of the challenging design problems the apartment posed. (The before was taken when I first hauled a few things up to the space to start to try to figure it out.)

Take this fatso design challenge: a long living room wall butted right up to the edge of the window on the adjacent wall (a product of the original cheap, corner-cutting construction). Tearing down the sheetrock wall on the left helped. Then I had a mirror the exact size of the window placed on the wall to form an L with the window; the mirror reflects the window, giving the illusion of a big corner window.

This simple optical illusion vastly expands the space, bounces more light to the back of the large room, while reflecting the best part of the park view outside. I tested the initial idea out by propping a cheap mirror that had been left in the apartment next to the window.

photo: sally schneider

More riveting Harlem action in a week or so, after the move. Stay tuned!

introducing ‘the improvised life’s new ‘laboratory’

Sally — Mon, 07 May 2012 09:17:16 +0000

A few months ago, I bought a space in Harlem, soon to be home of ‘the improvised life’s new LABORATORY, in which to experiment with all sorts of ideas for home and daily living.

I had scoured New York City real estate listings for YEARS, traipsing from space to space in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan weighing the pros and cons of neighborhoods, commutes, space-for-the-money – a huge list – until I finally said YES to modest space with very good bones. It was a lucky find, fitting a VERY limited budget AND having the essentials I’d been looking for: proximity to great transportation, a real neighborhood, good security, and most important of all, a wonderful view that could never be obstructed. The architecture is nothing to speak of and the apartment itself needed serious work.

It has become a lesson in seeing through the superficial to the bones beneath, and envisioning possibilities.

Over the past couple of months I have been doing a basic renovation, packing as many good ideas as possible into the design, while working with a limited budget, documenting it along the way.

It is rich with stories and lessons, from demolition to drywall, to lighting and flooring, to the challenges and mindset of managing a renovation, decision paralysis, and making mistakes.

When I think back to the initial vision of it, it may have started with this early post…a dream house of a Marseille penthouse….

Although there are many projects yet to be done, ‘the improvised life’ and I will be moving there this week. We’ve got to take a week or so off to get ourselves settled (it is AMAZING how much a move entails) and will be up and running soon with a ton of new material, much of it happening right there in Harlem.

photo: sally schneider

holton rower’s catalytic art (plywood + 50 gallons of paint + big imagination)

Sally — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:52:13 +0000

holton rower

Last week we went to the opening of an exhibition of artist Holton Rower’s paintings, made by pouring gallons of vividly colored paints onto plywood forms. They are on display at The Hole in NYC, an immense space that Rower’s monumental work fills with reverberating color and energy.

The paintings are made of humble materials: plywood and acrylic paint transformed by Rower’s imagination and daring. Some are so big that they could only be photographed by laying them in the alley behind Rower’s studio and photographing from 3 stories up. Tonight, we went to see him pour a painting and witness liquid color becoming form (as you can, on YouTube).

photo: sally schneider

The night of the opening, the Bowery was teeming with lifeforms displaying an amazing array of personal fashion. Conversations and introductions sparked everywhere in and out of the gallery…from Steven J. Bernstein to Blaise Cendrars (our head was spinning).

A man happened to have Cendrars’ novel Confessions of Dan Yack in his bag and read from it as we sat on a bench outside the gallery:

Why was it called the Pourquoi Pepita? I have often wondered. But there was a beautiful sign and inside, the bar was was splendid and I had such fun there. It was perhaps the happiest time of my life! That cats’ orchestra!

That cats’ orchestra!??? Then a friend introduced us to Rosaire Appel who makes unusual graphic novels “with no semantic reliability”; the words are known to vanish.

rosaire appel

We googled her the following day to discover the very improvisational nature of her work:

One morning I found a Sotheby’s catalogue from 1981 languishing on the curb, in the sun, abandoned. I picked it up – it’s the kind of used paper I use for brush practice. After filling the pages with ink gestures, I ripped it up, the scraps scattered on the floor. I thought they were dead but as I gathered them up they came back to life. “Taste’s Last Skrap” is the recatalogueing of the fragments of those used pages.

We went to the opening feeling kind of low, and came away from that evening elated at the convergence of so many varied ideas and people…at so much richness. We couldn’t help but think that Rower’s beautiful art had somehow catalyzed and ignited it all.

THAT’S what art can do.

holton Rower

Plywood and acrylic paint…

freehand, no-rule flower arrangements

Sally — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:37:44 +0000

photo: maria robledo

Photographer Maria Robledo emailed us a couple of images of her impromptu flower arrangements, with these words:

I love making these freehand arrangments.

I dont start with that intention, i start with looking at the leaf or flower as a photo then i bunch ‘em together w/o thinking.

it’s a surprise to me too because they just come out to look so pleasing.

We admire how fluid her process is: she doesn’t start with an idea in mind. A leaf or a flower grabs her and then she’s off ”bunching them together” to discover how they will arrange themselves…

…like the blossoms that ended up – unexpectedly, charmingly – inside the jar/vase…

photo: maria robledo

It’s what weaver Annie Albers called “dictation of the materials”…

photo: sally schneider

Thanks Maria!

d-i-y instant color block tablecloths

Sally — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:30:18 +0000

On Ikea’s impossible-to-translate blog, Livet Hemma, we found this image of the two-toned fabrics European Ikeas are selling. We’re not crazy about the color scheme but love the idea: why not overlap vividly-colored tablecloths or large swathes of cotton or linen to make a color block table? Unhemmed ends are CHIC.

one mid-century desk interpreted by two owners

Sally — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:00:38 +0000

photo: sally schneider

Last year, I posted a mid-century modern folding desk that I’d used for many years, and had decided to sell. Maria Robledo bought it for her 13 + year-old daughter Isabel. Recently, I was thrilled to see Isabel’s take on the desk: full of color and pattern, and a completely different style than my ascetically minimalist one.

Same desk; different view altogether.

photo: ellen silverman

It was also a lesson in passing on something dear, which I was still attached to; when you give it to someone who REALLY digs it, it makes it a joy.

the possibilities of folded paper

Sally — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:49:35 +0000

The great DVDP devised a gif out of origami artist Jun Mitani’s flickr photostream: a lovely reminder of the possibilities inherent in simple sheets of paper…

…which reminded us of Between the Folds, a wondrous video clip we posted about origami’s cosmic potential.

colorful d-i-y shipping pallet planters (w safe paints info)

Sally — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:40:47 +0000

photo: stacy k floral

Innovative uses for shipping pallets continue: here a play on shipping pallet gardens, painted bright colors and hung on a wall. In a post we wrote about how-to transform a shipping pallet into a vertical, layered garden, some readers brought up the question of food-safe paints for pallets that will house herbs, greens, nasturtiums and other edible plants. Kate Payne of Hip Girl’s Home (whose book we’re featuring in a giveaway) took the initiative and emailed the Old Fashioned Milk Paint folks, who make a completely non-toxic, zero VOC paint and sealant. Wrote Kate: “…air quality matters here, but so does sustained exposure to moisture and possible leaching, this is a great question!”

Here’s what she found out:

Milk paint is fine to use on raised beds. If you want to topcoat it however, you need to use a sealer designed for exterior use. Our Clear Coat is for interior use only. Perhaps a tung oil or a beeswax.

Here is a site that you might like to see that shows how to use milk paint:

If not topcoated, milk paint will spot white when it gets wet. Some people like this weathered look. If you want to use white, no spots will show.

The paint is not toxic and will not harm any plants.

…like these strawberry plants nestled into a blue-painted pallet.

mynjgarden.com

Of course, it’s essential to start with a safe, non-toxic shipping pallet.

Thanks Kate!

Via Unconsumption

how do you know when to take the leap?

Sally — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:06:38 +0000

photo: Wallace G. Levison

It’s well known that one of our favorite visual themes is people leaping – an obvious metaphor for “taking a leap” into new territory, work, projects, endeavors that we might have thought fearful…life.

We came across an interesting trove recently on Retronaut, of New Yorkers in the 1890′s. Although there are some spectacular leaps…

photo: Wallace G. Levison

…

photo: Wallace G. Levison

…

photo: Wallace G. Levison

…we came across two images of young women standing on the edge of a diving board, pondering the leap…

photo: Wallace G. Levison

…wondering about the consequences perhaps, for stymied by fear…or perhaps…just waiting for the right moment…

photo: Wallace G. Levison

…which is not always when others (or we ourselves) think it should be.

Via Retronaut

diagram your life with diagram.ly

Sally — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:00:41 +0000

There are a lot of online drawing tools, but most of them feel too complicated to be of much use to us. Diagram.ly, on the other hand, couldn’t be easier. If you’ve ever needed to throw together a quick diagram for a report and been stymied by the lack of options or user un-friendliness of Microsoft Word, you’ll find this to be a great (and free!) alternative. We’ve been using it to sketch out some storage space, but see its potential for many free-form design projects. For the more business-minded, the folks at alternativeTo point out that it would be great for organizational and work-flow charts. And certainly kids who just want to play around with shapes could have some fun with it too! It’s a perfect combo-platter: practical AND playful…

Via the always great Swiss Miss, again

making a table garden with cheap potted bulbs

Sally — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:23:41 +0000

photo: sally schneider

We written a couple of times about the big transformation of pots of inexpensive potted bulbs when you tilt the whole root ball out of its plastic pot and into a wide ceramic bowl.

But we never showed what actually happens over the course of a week as the tightly-closed bulbs open and bloom. So we photographed the hyacinths that we’d plunked into a Smarta bowl from Ikea about 5 days ago. All we had to do was water them lightly every few days. Over days we watched the plants transform in front of our very eyes. We realized that we had actually created a tiny tabletop garden, whose subtle changes we could enjoy daily.

The key is to buy bulbs that are tightly closed and just poking through the soil, so you can watch the wondrous transformation into bloom.

photo: sally schneider

d-i-y music: trees, almonds and other found instruments + ‘the beat goes on’

Sally — Tue, 01 May 2012 02:15:24 +0000

(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….

(Video link here.)

The beat goes on, the beat goes on

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain

La de da de de, la de da de da

(Sonny and Cher’s 1967 Billboard Top 10 Hit)

Top video via Swiss Miss