Though it’s not exactly a headBOARD, we love this painted canvas hung on the wall at the head of a low bed. And we are inspired by the canvas Cy Twombly tacked right onto the walls of his Rome villa, ready for painting. 63-inch by 6-yards rolls of primed artist’s canvas can be found on Amazon…
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We opened the John Cage’s enduringly great A Year from Monday and found this extraordinary set of questions*: How immediately are you going to say Yes to no matter what unpredictability, even when what happens seems to have no relation to what one thought was one’s commitment? The kind of YES he’s talking about is full committment:
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At the compellingly odd blog Under the Sun, we stumbled on an gorgious interior with messily painted, canvas like walls in what appeared to be an Italian Villa. We follwed the trail to discover it was from an article Vogue magazine ran in 1966, about artist Cy Twombly’s villa in Rome. The photographs were by…
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The Hindu traditional day of festivity known as Holi, celebrated on March 5th, is a religious celebration that has come to signify a lighthearted goodbye to winter and joyous welcome to Spring. Celebrants throw vibrantly colored powders on each other, as though blessings, in a jubilant day of transformation. Spring is literally in the air!
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To illustrate just how useful it is to have a mortar and pestle —and to accompany our essential post about this great, ancient tool — here are some favorite mortar-made preparations: simple, a-la-minute flavored oils for dipping bread, drizzling on grilled fish, or jazzing up soups and stews. I set the mortar on the table for guests to…
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Recently, Jim Dillon asked me to recommend a good mortar and pestle. It is a fine request as they are incredibly useful, yet misunderstood tools. I’ve been mentally panning most of the mortars and pestles I see for year because of their ineffective —yet often beautiful — design. So here are some mortar and pestle basics,…
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(Video link HERE) Does your headphone phone jack have a loose connection? Did the stem of your eyeglasses snap? Tired of trying to repair them with weak glue or duct tape? We said YES to all those questions and were thrilled to find Bondic, a liquid plastic that “welds” broken items. It fits right in with our…
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(Video link here.) Every so often, we check in with artist/educator Paul Zelavansky’s YouTube channel, where we find salient, carefully-edited clips of Mister Rogers’ wisdom. They are as transformative for adults as it is for kids. Zelavansky opened our eyes to the power of Rogers’ work. “Taking a Breath” is a perfect .58 seconds to…
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(Video link here.) When we stumbled on the sleek, illuminated video, Love Letter to Plywood, on Kottke, we hadn’t realized it was by artist Tom Sachs. Of all the plywood “makers” we know, he is among the most inspiring. The guy seriously understands and works the stuff, from his plywood “concrete” block, to his black plywood…
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Over the years, we’ve written often about the great Anne Herbert, the extraordinary writer that long-ago coined the phrase “Practice Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty“, and the curious little book of that name that was published in the ’90’s. Long out-of-print, its charm and power continued to resonate, inspiring an updated edition, now…
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When we saw these curiously chic oversized streamers, we thought: what a lovely design element, not realizing they were party decorations. They are so UNLIKE any crepe paper we’ve seen before. The secret is extra wide Italian crepe paper, a whole other order of magnitude than the vin ordinaire stuff. It looks more like fabric.
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(Video link here.) Here’s our second inspiring video of kids dancing to Eddy Kenzo‘s new song, Jambole. Play it full screen and LOUD. The music will get you dancing. And the kids are a testament to the INFINITE number of MOVES YOU CAN MAKE! (Dig that little girl in the pink dress!) Pure JOY. Listen…
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Japanese design studio YOY’s beautifully minimal lamp shade made out of a single sheet of paper made us realize that we could make it or other PAPER shade iterations now that we we’ve found a bright, pleasing bright LED bulb. Since LEDs don’t get hot like incandescent bulbs, we can fashion shades out of paper without danger of fire.
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August Sanders‘ farmer got us wondering What new seeds do we want to sow today? And before we knew it, the powerful image segued with a quote by Brian Eno about his process of composing:
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(Video link here.) David Saltman of The Houdini File alerted us to René Lavand, the extraordinary artist of illusion who passed away recently. His performance of the classic “cups and balls” is mesmerizing. Lavand, who has only one hand, performs with the grace of a dancer, weaving a hypnotic spell as he whispers “siempre tengo tres” (I have…
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When a friend once suggested we use 12-inch lengths of industrial steel I-beams as “brackets” to hold shelves, we couldn’t quite imagine what he was thinking. UNTIL we spotted the fabulously rusted I-beam shelving at metal fabricator while wandering through East Harlem last fall. When we saw the makeshift shelving the owner had improvised to store…
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Several months ago, two Little Free Libraries appeared in the park across the way. Since then, we’ve found a number of children’s books with big messages about the creative process. In Art for Children: Paul Klee, Ernst Raboff’s description of Klee’s painting of a treehouse opened our eyes to the many elements of the painting…
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Ever since we stumbled on a Pinterest page devoted totally to DOORS, we’ve been mulling possibilities and wondering why we don’t see more imaginative doors around New York City; most are from Europe where age and eccentricity are the norm. That is, until we spotted the wondrous trompe l’oeil door in Brooklyn (above) and this…
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(Video link HERE.) A visual poem for the day; no words needed. —Susan Dworski
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