In a recent ramble around New York, we came upon this classical iron fence, transformed by grapevine. The fence acts like a loom or structure through which someone wove grapevine in and out to make for much greater privacy and a warmer, more organic feel. And of course, that got us looking up grapevine (which…
Read MoreWhat if Your Life Were a Painting?
We —our lives — are really a kind of artist’s canvas. When we take that view, we ask ourselves: What are we painting? Do we paint with kindness, generosity, anger, fear, bravado, hatred, curiosity…
Read MorePermanent Hopscotch for Spontaneous Skip + Jump
Photographer Virginia del Giudice has been sending us sightings from her travels in Amsterdam of random brilliant “everyday” improvisations the Dutch have come up with. Here’s a favorite: numbered tiles formed into a hopscotch grid and placed permanently on the sidewalk, for a quick spontaneous skip and jump on your way to do an errand or go…
Read MoreA Simple Wood Chair Wrapped and Embellished
To raise funds for Teddy’s Wish charity auction, nineteen of the UK’s leading designers from the field of architecture, design, fashion and graphics have been invited to customise the iconic Ercol Stacking chair, a simple, elegant wooden chair that invites embellishment. We are smitten with Faye Toogood’s iteration, above, wrapped with what looks like white nylon…
Read MoreBe Alert for Bad Productivity Advice
We are big fans of 99U and have found quite a few ideas that foster productivity. Some of their posts definitely do not. They got us thinking about all the “sure-fire advice” from supposed experts that we find on the internet, and how easy it is to think we’re doing things wrong. Here’s an example: “By…
Read MoreWake Up: Weave Wonder Out of Failure
Recently, it feels like no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to erase the ominous “f” word, spelled out across my interior blackboard in capital letters: F A I L U R E. My insomniac “fail” rumination was interrupted at dawn when a photograph flew over my e-transom, jolting me out of my…
Read MoreSeptember is Fig Season! Riffs and a Recipe
We “awoke with a start” realizing it is full-tilt fig season when a reader wrote to say she applied our tomato drying technique to figs, which she has in abundance on her tree. Oh my. It’s fig season! What is so grand about figs is that they are perfect unadorned or paired with the simplest of foods, prosciutto…
Read MoreUnderwater Film Break with Néry’s “Narcose”
(Video link HERE.) This intoxicating little under-sea film by Julie Gautier follows record-holding deep diver Guillaume Néry down, down until he experiences the confusion and euphoria of high-pressure nitrogen narcosis. A little bit scary and very much lovely, this thirteen-minute journey into the depths of the ocean and Néry’s hallucinations will throw you far out of your daily…
Read MoreRock Table…DIY Imaginings
Spotted at Aqqindex: a very cool Rock Table by Elisabeth Garouste and Maria Bonetti. Could we chistle out notches in small boulders or interesting big rocks to hold a triangle or rectangle of painted ply or…
Read MoreDIY Two-Panel Room Divider
Annaleen Karlsson of Annaleenas Hem came up with this DIY room divider for La Petite Magazine. It’s not a new concept, but a tried and true one: You attach hinges to two boards of the same height and width, painted or finished as you like. Our old friend Tom Booth made a two-panel screen almost the…
Read MorePractice: Forgive Yourself and Keep Trying
Just about everyone we know is pretty ruthless when it comes to judging THEMSELVES. And those judgments can derail projects and the creative process in general, stopping us from pushing through to doing what we need to. We loves this simple practice from wise old Seth Godin.
Read MoreHonoring 9/11
Last night for a short while, we could see the memorial lights from the World Trade Center streaming straight up into the sky from our terrace at the other end of Manhattan. In a moment we realized where we were in September, and remembered where we had been when the towers were struck on September 11,…
Read MoreUrban Taxi Farmers 2014
Five years ago we began profiling an intrepid group of urban farmers, all of whom have the day job of taxi driver. They’ve “borrowed” pieces of unused open land in various corners of New York City and turned it into bread and butter – or rather into corn, beans, tomatoes, grapes, herbs and whatever else they can…
Read MoreAn Improvised Roost to See What’s Around
Sometimes we like to climb up on whatever’s around to shift our view and perspective. Do-able just about anywhere. Image curated by Holton Rower
Read MoreOur FIX for the Flawed Cos Backpack
In July, we posted a compelling backpack we’d bought only to discover that its design was profoundly flawed. So we hacked the backpack to see if we could devise a fix, a lesson in trying ideas out, and flexing our own (untrained) design muscles to make things better or at the very least learn a few things.
Read MoreThe Wakeup Message of Little Accidents
During many years as a professional cook, I burned and cut myself numerous times. Over time, I came to view these small injuries as a sort of early warning system with a clear message: Slow Down, Take Care and Be Mindful that you are a bit “off”. LISTEN to yourself to hear what’s really going on.…
Read MoreGiglio’s 10 Wine Pairings for Junk Food
One of the things we love about wine and spirits authority Anthony Giglio is his complete lack of pretention on matters of food and wine. So, of course, when asked to recommend wines to drink with pork rinds, pizza, Doritos and Dunkin Donuts (!!) and other humble junky foods we secretly love, he rose the occasion. You’ll…
Read MoreSolar Lanterns Become Wondrous Bubbles
“Sensual wave“, an art installation by French architects Marion Moustey and Alexandre Arcens, gave us ideas for late summer-fall gardens lit with Soji Solar Lantern. Susan Dworski first posted about the wondrous, inexpensive solar shoji lights she festooned her garden with. “Sensual Wave” takes her idea a step further.
Read MoreWhy Walking Helps Us Think + Create
In this week’s New Yorker, Ferris Jabr describes research that shows why walking goes beyond being a great physical exercise, but a catalyst for creative thinking as well. We go for a walk daily in the park we look out on. Every time, we discover something new AND find our mind shifting, ideas sparking, problems beginning to yield. Nature reminds us of possibilities…
Read MoreIkea’s Knockout Video on the Power of a Book
(Video link here.) Ikea’s creative team is rivaling Apple’s…AND using Apple’s classic myth-making approach to its latest technology to describe the…power…of…a…BOOK. This brilliant ad for IKea’s 2015 catalogue lays out just why REAL books are so wonderful. With thanks to Susan Dworski for making sure we watched a video we’d ignored!
Read More