After we wrote about making bookshelves out of black pipe, we stumbled on these images of black pipe closet fitting. We’d taken them a couple of months ago at our friends’ newly renovated, about-to-be-moved-into, Brooklyn brownstone; there are no clothes hanging yet so you can really see the detail. We’re thinking that the resources in…
Read Moreteeny video: what having a new idea is like
This is how we feel when our minds make some big creative connection…(maybe without the music…) via Design Observer
Read Moresnow creations, from nature and little boy
After a big snowfall in New York City, the natural world takes over for just a while and shows itself in surprising ways. Readers and friends often send us reports and pictures of what they’ve seen, like these icicles that appeared in a subway station (from Cara de Silva via the New York Times), or…
Read Morea painted (floor) rug
Writing ‘the improvised life’, we discover that themes come in waves: one idea (or image) seems to attract another that takes the idea a step further, or gives it a different spin (may be it’s simply that our sights are honed…). It can happen with several themes at once. Lately, a big one has been…
Read Moreguerrilla dance goes viral in a spanish bank
The Spanish guerrilla collective flo6x8 has been making a series of benignly disruptive and moving actions in banks, as protest for what they believe is a corrupt system. They favor flamenco, with its varied roots most famously Andalucian Gypsy culture, as their means of expression, most often with dancing or singing. Last December, flo6x8 slipped into…
Read Morepainted fabric redux: clothes!
Even though we’d recently imagined painting cloth-covered chairs and sofas, tablecloths, pilllows and curtains, we didn’t think about CLOTHES! This timely reminder came from Ebay, via An Ambitious Project Collapsing. Imagine the possibilities… Related posts: copy this: paint a pillow…sofa…bedspread…curtain… blank canvas furniture
Read Morere-thinking book design (tara mann)
Tara Mann who often works at ‘the improvised life’ is also pursuing a BFA in Communication Design AND a BA in Digital Media. She recently posted a portfolio of her work from last semester. We love her design of an intense philosophical essay: to format it as a WORKBOOK with lots of white space around the text.…
Read Moreweight control system, via ernest hemingway
The great blog Ouno recently published a wonderful post about Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway’s villa in Cuba where he lived from 1939 to 1960; the house has been preserved pretty much intact. We love Hemingway’s method for tracking his weight: write daily scale readings on the bathroom wall. (We’d paint the wall with whiteboard paint.)
Read Moreskateistan: skateboarding as antidote (to war, poverty, sadness…)
This stunning video is well worth the riveting 9 minutes it takes to watch it, even (or especially) in the midst of a busy day. Part of Sundance’s short film program, it is a moving, beautifully filmed documentary about Skateistan, Afghanistan’s first co-educational skateboarding school, created by Oliver Percovich to help kids dealing with a life…
Read Morecopy or buy: pipe bookshelves and…
The other day we stumbled on some oddly wonderful, sculptural bookshelves made of black pipe. They’re for sale at DirtyBils shop on Etsy for $79, a fine deal, we’d say. But as we looked closely at the pictures (below) we couldn’t help thinking “Why not monkey around with this great idea”, and started searching for…
Read Morereminder: it’s not what you know…
Related post: lucky biscuits + signs in cookies
Read Morereverse-painted stairs (a carpet of wood)
From a UK home with a Scandinavian feel: a “carpet” of unpainted wood going up the stairs (the reverse of the usual painted steps). It kind of reminds us of the Painted Floor with a Surprise we posted about recently…adding an unexpected twist on the expected. via French by Design
Read Morethe fun theory of doing things that are good-for-us
The Fun Theory is a website dedicated to the idea that “something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different…” It issued a challenge, inviting the public to submit ideas for the best way to make…
Read Morecome poke around our attic
We found this nugget in an email from our friend Tim Slavin, who’s written some great guest posts (listed below): …I spent a few hours rooting through the 400 plus stories you’ve published since the start of last year. Lots of neat stuff in the Improvised Life “attic”! Our ATTIC!!! …indeed, a virtual one, full…
Read Moreeddie izzard on passion in career choices
The divine Eddie Izzard on why people pursue alt-vocations like comedian, taxidermist, beekeeper: “…you got to go for that, you can’t just fall into it…you’ve got to want to be…” via Hip Girls Guide to Homemaking
Read More“inspiration comes of working…”
Ellen Silverman sent us this image of a sign (artfully tacked up with duct tape) that was emailed to her by her friend Lisa Gustin: Inspiration Comes of Working. Imagination is more important than knowledge. The purpose of human life is to serve and show compassion and the will to help others. Creativity is the…
Read Morecopy this: paint a pillow…sofa…bedspread…curtain…
The endlessly clever Wary Meyers, designer and author of Wary Meyers’ Tossed & Found: Unconventional Design from Cast-offs, sells cotton canvas pillow covers that he’s painted with acrylic paint, which is pliable. He mimics the look and feel of famous Abstract Expressionist works – like De Kooning, Pollock, Kline, Motherwell. The pillows are backed with velvet…
Read Moreitzhak perlman: “making with whatever we have left…”
Pamela Hovland told us an amazing story she had heard about the great violinist Itzhak Perlman, and forwarded a version that she found online: Childhood polio left Isaac Perlman able to walk only with braces on both legs and crutches. When Perlman plays at a concert, the journey from the wings to the center of…
Read Moredept of painted floors: apple green
Painting is a great solution for sprucing up wooden floors you don’t want to sink too much money into. We hadn’t realized that we always think of neutrals – white or gray or black – as the formula for a stylish painted floor… …until we saw apple green work so well! (Here’s a good how-to.)…
Read Morein memory of martin luther king
“Dr. King’s Friends Console Each Other”, taken by Henry Groskinsky in the hours after King’s murder in Memphis in 1968. Here is Dr. King’s remarkable biography, much of which we did not know.
Read More