Halloween is Friday, and we’re anticipating many examples of The Art of the Pumpkin. As with other materials-for-making, pumpkins inspire what to do IF we “listen to that which wants to be done“, a la Anni Albers. If the message is unclear, or you’re feeling uninspired, here are some unusual jack-o’-lantern examples to spark your imagination.
Read More
Having grown up as outdoor brownstone stoop sitters, we were intrigued by the possibilities for INDOOR stoops, and for portable stoops you can place outdoors if you don’t happen to have a real one to hang out on.
Read More
Reading Holton Rower’s “Run Toward Your Fear” sign recently, I recalled a remark that Tom Robbins made to me years ago when I was fretting about whether to sign up to design a big, new project with a tight deadline that required a great many skills I did not have—skills I would have to learn on…
Read More
Among Improvised Life’s many categories and themes is “Materials for Making“. We love finding surprising uses for materials and showing you how you can use them. The other day as we were mulling our Friends with Benefits subscription program, we realized that money is a Material for Making as well.
Read More
At Aqqindex, we stumbled on a room Italian Architect Paolo Portoghesi designed in Casa Papanice, currently part of The American University of Rome. His use of horizontal stripes are a revelation, working so much more fluidly than most clunky iterations we’ve seen of the idea because…
Read More
In 1947, American Sculpture Isamu Noguchi designed but never executed a face formed by huge mounds of sand. It was meant to be a Sculpture to be Seen from Mars, visible only from outer space; the nose was to be projected one mile high. Had it been realized,
Read More
(Video link HERE.) OK Go’s wondrous new video is a strangely perfect way to start your day: silly, happy, beautiful. We watched, grooving, with the music on for a minute or so. But we found it even more beautiful with the music OFF.
Read More
When we need a hit of in-the-moment, we-never-would-have-seen-THAT zen, we check out Maria Robledo’s Instagram feed. It’s always full of miracles and beauty, of ordinary things.
Read More
This image of a room in Villa Savoye, the Le Corbusier-designed modernist villa in the outskirts of Paris, defies notions we had previously held about the WRONGNESS of having a wall run right into a window. That is what we encountered when we bought our laboratory space; we saw it as a major design flaw,…
Read More
The photo-essay Old Masters in the Sunday Times Health Magazine features luminaries 80 + years old who continue to be passionate about their work. “They reign. ” Each one embraces the continual process of learning and growing, while ignoring usual notions of what aging looks like.
Read More
Japanese artist Tanaka Tatsuya witty miniature worlds inspire our own improvisations using tiny toy people. After all, when life seems out of control, and the world’s closing in, nothing’s more centering than taking a moment to stop and play.
Read More
(Video link HERE.) Master life-hacker/improviser Dave Hax shows how to make a spoon out of a plastic bottle. It reminds us of “Found” the beautiful metal-coated plastic cutlery by designer Oscar Diaz in 2009, featured in Dezeen. Photographs of Diaz’s process show the kind of “x-ray vision” a clever designer employs when looking at a material.
Read More
When you experience the pastries, cookies and cakes created by Ayako Kurokowa of Patisserie Burrow in Brooklyn, you know an artist is at work. We find ourselves inspired just by looking at her Instagrams.
Read More
Since we first wrote about the mysterious mechanical vibration that shakes us awake at night, we’ve tried endless fixes to no avail and at times, have despaired of finding a solution. But amidst this difficulty have come many unexpected gifts, in the form of strangers reaching out to help, and research leading to rich layers…
Read More
We discovered artisan/designer Olivier Dolle‘s lovely tree branch book shelf when reader Kevin Neff sent us an Instructable for a cardboard version inspired by it. We find the wooden one quite beautiful and appreciate its asymmetry, unusual in shelving. The cardboard version has it’s own charm.
Read More
When we looked closely at this 3D rug, we realized that it was really an assemblage of simple shapes that LOOKED way more complex that in is. Very cool as a rug OR as a painted floor.
Read More
Walking in the park the other day, we saw a young woman lying in a huge pile of brightly-colored leaves…half buried really, resting; she looked relaxed and content. Around her three little girls were all happily making things out of leaves. And we thought LEAVES. What a beautiful material-for-making things all around us. That got…
Read More
(Video link HERE.) Bio 50 has applied open-source thinking to electronic appliances we use in our homes everyday. They’ve prototyped of a system built upon standard components that offers the user the ability to assemble, customize, repair, and repurpose existing products. Check out their clever fan, hand mixer, and a balloon-encased lamp all configured from the same elements.
Read More
When we looked closely at images of the invalid Matisse sitting in bed or in a chair making his beautiful paper cutouts, we realized that he used an adjustable bed table similar to one we’ve had for years. We came across ours while trolling Ebay for mid-century furniture nearly 20 years ago. Billed as a Danish…
Read More