ellie davies
We know quite a few people who are making major life changes these days, living with the question of what to do next, waiting for the path to become clear. So we were really struck, and curiously heartened, by this series of images by photographer Ellie Davies… read more…
A Day in India from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.
(Video link here.) Seeing this wonderful day in India makes us see our own day here a bit differently.
(There’s a lot of seriously wonderful-looking food… read more…
rajesh kumar singh/associated press
Indian children play on the banks of the River Ganges in Allahabad, India, on Nov. 17. A reminder to leap and play, no matter what age you are!
Need encouragement? read more…
justin beal
Autoprogettazione, roughly translated “self design,” was a project and book by the modernist artist and designer Enzo Mari that gives instructions for building easy-to-assemble furniture — tables, chairs, bookshelves, wardrobe – using rough boards and nails. Originally published in 1974, it has been reprinted many times. Mari created the project because he thought
…if people were encouraged to build a table with their own hands…they would be able to understand the thinking behind it.
And if they understand the thinking behind it, just imagine what they could do…
Just leafing through Autoprogettazione makes us feel empowered to pick up a hammer. And we can’t help but think the rough boards Mari envisioned his readers using resemble – indeed could be culled from — the wood from shipping pallets.
Taking Mari’s basic approach and inspiration, many artist’s and designers have made their own iterations. We love Justin Beal‘s bed with a fab hot pink mattress, above. And we WANT Kueng Caputo’s Lampada lamp: read more…
This sketch made by Henri Matisse January 7, 1940 is the first of thirteen he did in preparation for a wondrous painting The Dream completed in September 1940. Scroll down to see great artist’s process…as the painting emerges… read more…
photo: mikołaj molenda, jacek majewski
We are completely smitten with this jazzy floor at Relaks Cafe and Bike Repair Shop in Warsaw, Poland. Conceived of by Super super and Moko Architects as a low-budget flooring solution, it’s a modernist mosaic made out of scraps and offcuts of plywood, chipboard, mdf, maybe some cork and non slip rubber tiles… read more…
Having an increasingly difficult time remembering things (and SO much to remember), we were very interested to read the Guardian’s How I learned a language in 22 hours about Joshua Foer‘s successfully learning an obscure language using a learning website called Memrise. Memrise bases their language courses on three essential principles, excerpted here from the very long and interesing piece:
The first is what’s known as elaborative encoding. The more context and meaning you can attach to a piece of information, the likelier it is that you’ll be able to fish it out of your memory at some point in the future. And the more effort you put into creating the memory, the more durable it will be. One of the best ways to elaborate a memory is to try visually to imagine it in your mind’s eye. If you can link the sound of a word to a picture representing its meaning, it’ll be far more memorable than simply learning the word by rote.
One of the best-demonstrated principles of memory read more…
(Video link here.) Last year we bought a waxed-cotton knapsack from Dargelos that we LOVE because it carries a huge amount of stuff without looking like it. Gradually the wax finish wore off and we began to look into rewaxing it. Dargelos recommends a solvent-free paste wax you can rub onto your fabric bag to refurbish it (They have a free how-to pdf here). Another way to go is Otter Wax, a solid brick of beeswax and plant-based waxes and oils (no petroleum or silicone).
We discovered that you can it to wax just about any cotton item to make them waterproof, and give them a weathered sheen that can be akin to leather… read more…
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
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…
photo © melissa catanese,
We stumbled on some compelling photo placemats done as a public art project for Atlanta Celebrates Photography: photos printed onto large size paper, perfect IF you have a big color printer. The standard size of a placemat is 12″ x 18″, bigger we can print, although we suppose, we could have them done at Kinko’s.
The photo placemats got us mulling what we have around besides our roll of kraft paper for making some impromptu placemats. Our 11″ x 14″ pad of Strathmore Drawing Paper 
(Video link here.) A friend sent us this beautiful video of Ray Bethell, a multi sport-kite flyer from Canada of unknown age (we hear he’s in his 80′s):
His skin is like leather as he normally flies with his shirt off. He is deaf, so when he flies people hold their hands up and wave them for applause. He flies 2 with his hands and the 3rd one is attached to his waist. He performs at the Washington State International Kite Festival every year.
We had to know more.The bio on Bethell’s website tells the story of a self-taught man who figured out what he needed to know and broke new ground in kite-flying: read more…
photo: christopher hirscheimer
Our friends Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton, creators of the wonderful Canal House cookbook series, have a friend in the appliance business who keeps offering to get them a big new stove for their kitchen studio. NO, they keep saying, We love our little side-by-side stoves!
Every great dish Melissa and Christopher come up with is cooked on their two vin-ordinaire gas stoves, which makes for eight burners and two ovens. And those very same plain little stoves appear in photographs of their unselfconsciously stylish, comfortable kitchen.
Which begs the question: What kind of stove will really help you to cook happily and easily? The answer, we’ve found, is read more…
I recently undertook a Sedaris readathon and plowed through all his booksin one fell swoop.
To avoid the usual, well-thumbed celebrity-smut at my manicure salon, I introduced the notion of reading several Sedaris stories aloud to Amber, my young manicurist, while she whittles and sands. The whole salon falls silent in rapt attention, and everyone falls down laughing (or weeping) as the stories build to their irreverent and often melancholy climaxes.In truth, this is secretly self-serving, for I learn a huge amount about timing, dialogue, and structure from the process.
