If your heart breaks...

 

I hope it breaks open, and never, ever closes again.

Summer Solstice

The fifteen minute nature walk I took in between storms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City Water

This is a concept from Samal Design.

 

A map of Paris streets on a water bottle.

 

Hope these come into production before I journey across the ocean to wander the City of Lights.

 

(These bottles would also be great for other major tourist locations.)

Missing Pieces

If you happen to have a bunch of puzzles in the back of your closet or other storage area that are missing pieces and you just don't know what to do with them, well here is an idea...

 

 

Make a table out of them like Rupert McKelvie did!

Or something else. With enough pieces and enough glue, the possibilities are endless.

JPD Tables

Quantum Table

Sweep and Swept Table

 

 

Droplet Table

Jason Phillips Design

On Mother's Day and Every Day

Double high-fives to all nurturing female role models.

You are all worthy of a plant with roots attached verses cut flowers that don't last.

Out with the snow. In with the dew.

This video reminds me of being eleven.

I'd like to think I still harbor much of this sort of imagination.

 

 

Welcome Spring.

The Wine-throated Hummingbird

(source)

Things you can see when your eyes are closed.

Reiko Imoto

Wear your nerves on the outside.

If you haven't already seen the attractive to complex and unconventional geometric jewelery of Nervous System, I'm going to show you some of my favorite pieces for sale in their shop.

(Can you believe this ring is only $15.00!!!)

*Nervous System is a design studio that works at the intersection of science, art, and technology. We create using a novel process that employs computer simulation to generate designs and digital fabrication to realize products. Drawing inspiration from natural phenomena, we write computer programs mimicking processes and patterns found in nature and use those programs to create unique and affordable art, jewelry, and housewares.* 

 

They even have applets where you can design your own pieces and purchase them for completely affordable prices, because all of their products are so ethically made!

Nervous System is a unique design twist I can get behind.

Two Markets

The first is Bangkok's Maeklong Market which rests and bundles on either side of the The Maeklong Railway.

The second is Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. It is located around 100 kilometers south of the first.

Both beautifully captured in this short video.

 

 

 

 

The World is what you Decoupage it

ImagineNations

Pen & Ink?

At first glance I didn't think so either...

R.S.V.P.

Fun with Animal knick-knacks

Aled Lewis

Stunning...

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Forest Xylophone

The most innovative way I've ever hear Bach's Cantata 147!

 

 

This commercial was filmed for NTT Docomo's Touch Wood SH-08C.

 Created by Morihiro Harano of Drill Inc.

Springtime!!!

Beyond Fever

Yes, this is a cabin on fire.

It’s the easiest way for me to describe how I’ve been feeling, and why I have not had any posts for over a month.

I know this has been a long hard winter for most of us, but I’ll admit I’ve been selfish in my feelings and I haven’t given a shit about yours.

Sorry friends, followers, and dear readers.

The good news is: melting.

There are hearts inside

(Image from Ditte Isager)

Lacy... Spacy... Out-of-this-world!

Do you remember these dolls?

I never had a Spectra Doll, but my next door neighbor growing up did. I wanted one so bad, but every time I was able to get a new doll around the time (over 20 years ago) I couldn't allow myself to deviate from my incredible (and growing) Jem Doll collection.

I liked these beaming teenagers from the planet Shimmeron, because of their glittery hair.

Now, everyday I notice more and more glitter in my own hair. At this rate I will look like a Shimmeron  (sans metallic skin or maybe not) in about ten years.

My nearly black hair is transforming to white and silver and it's noticeable, because I do not dye my hair.

I do not plan to dye my hair in the future either, because I like the idea of looking as lunar as possible. I also plan to wear much more lace as the years go by.

Garage Rock



Pam Central

A discovery has been made!!!

Late last night the boyfriend and I decided to hit up this local spot we went to once before to play darts.

While looking for the bathrooms we found a huge room filled with arcade games, poker tables, pool tables, air hockey, and more pinball machines than anywhere else I have ever seen before!





Turns out there is absolutely no one playing any of these games between the hours of 10pm and 1am Monday through Thursday.

So we pretty much have this place all to ourselves any night we'd actually want to go out and play here.

Super awesome!

"...and they have escaped the weight of darkness"

Tuesday night was incredible!

Last weekend I was blog hopping about and saw an amazing video on my friend Peggy's Passion and Inspiration. I loved everything about it! She informed me on facebook (and through her blog) that the artist was touring. My wonderful boyfriend noticed that and he immediately bought tickets to the show!

How spontaneous and rad!

(Thanks Peggy! Thanks Mike!)

Aside from burning my forehead with a curling iron while getting ready to go out, the whole night was perfect.

Mike and I went for food and drinks beforehand and the show was incredible, like I mentioned above.

Here are a couple pictures I managed to sneak.

Yeah, that's Olafur Arnalds performing at The Cedar Cultural Center.

Now one of my favorite musicians!

When the show was over we hung out at the theater and had a beer and we met Olafur and chatted a bit with him. He was very pleasant. Oh and he made a few funny jokes while on stage. Said (with his Icelandic accent) the band and he went to the Mall of America and the only thing he bought was a magnet that said, "McCain for President."

Here is a picture of us with him.

(Maybe not the best picture I've ever been in, but at it'll do.)

After taking in all that beautiful music we went to a dive bar and played darts. I lost like I always do, but had fun like always do.

Now here is a video from Olafur Arnalds that I like even more than the one I saw on Peggy's blog.

Plus, many of the images in this video were projected during the concert.

Enjoy!

Got a wine glass? Got some other inanimate objects?

Get to it! Sample your room!

Sampled Room from Mateusz Zdziebko on Vimeo.

Semper Invicta

Remember one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, a place full of life and culture?

Remember Warsaw?

This is what its apocalypse looked like after the Second World War.

City of ruins HD slideshowvideo from styczek on Vimeo.

Ask yourself, what are you doing these days to prevent future ruin to our amazing structures and civilizations?

Nevermind the Caterpillar

I had no idea for the last thirteen years I've been wearing a sex cult ring!

Growing up, my Mom had a little jewelry box she always kept on her dresser. Once in awhile she'd let my sift through it. It was shaped like a cabin you might find in a Bob Ross painting. With umber, mustard yellow and pea green embellishments. I loved it! The roof lifted up to reveal treasures all tangled by a mass of pearls strewn about and woven throughout everything on a broken wiry thread. The tiny wooden house had a porch too. I remember my delight when I discovered the two hidden drawers on both sides of the front stairs. Cluttered and stuffed with pretty shiny and tarnished things and a burnt five dollar bill.

 (The jewelry box was something like this, but way more awesome. Via Google image search.)

I took the spoon ring out and started wearing it daily when I was about fifteen. It was years before my Mom ever noticed it on my hand. By that point, I'd had it for so long she just let me keep it. I love this ring! It has history!

A history I wasn't completely aware of until today. I took off my favorite adornment just to look at it, ya know, because I love it. To my surprise, I noticed some words embossed into the metal that were very hard to make out due to me wearing it every day and the three other people I know of who wore it before me as well. With a lot of squinting, aha! Oneida Community.

So I got to researching. I knew this at one point had been an engagement ring. (A tradition that started in the 1600's by servants that couldn’t afford fancy jewelry and stole from their house owners.) I always found that charming. What's next is something entirely different. It's hippie 70's revival is starting to make sense now.

Oneida Ldt. is one of the world’s largest markets of stainless steel silverware/ flatware today, but a couple hundred years ago, not the case. It all started out as a utopian commune. There were about three hundred members and they grew and canned vegetables, produced silk thread, and manufactured animal traps and you guessed it, silverware. They also had a lot of sex with each other. They believed that every man was married to every woman and to prevent any exclusive relationships from forming they were kept in constant circulation. They had a lot of other beliefs that I also found disturbing. Old men were sleeping with young girls and postmenopausal woman with teenage boys. Their sexuality and spirituality were closely linked, and this was some sort of guiding religious act. Ascending fellowship is how they put it. Their breeding methods were also fucked up.

This creepy blissful cult all came to a sharp end when their leadership changed hands, or penises, however you want to put it. Statutory rape charges were filed, fleeing to Canada happened. Some of the member actually went on to traditionally marry each other, raise and bond with their own kids, which wasn't allowed to them before. Other members reorganized as a joint stock company that made the spoon that was cut in half to form the ring that I wear on the middle finger of my left hand.

I know this ring comes from way back when, because Oneida Community dissolved entirely by 1878, and dropped the Community part on labels after that.



Depending On How You Feel About Gray

A dream I had and it was this...

I was sitting on my messenger bag, because the ground was sort of muddy. My knees pulled up to my chest, and my back leaning against a tree trunk. The day was gray. The snow, the exposed earth, the buildings, my coat and my boots, everything was some shade of gray. Note-worthy, because I always dream in color.

I was also feeling gray. My tights were charcoal in a houndstooth pattern; reflecting whatever light was there. It was the only gray I liked in all of this. I was staring at my knees.

Traditionally, houndstooth is composed of alternating bands of four dark and for light threads in both warp (threads that go over) and weft (threads that go under) woven in a simple 2:2 twill. Two over, then two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass.

It's not unlike me in my waking life to stare at something and think about how it's made, but while sleeping not likely. In my dream my tights were a solid color, or not, depending on how you feel about gray. The warp and the weft must have been different fibers to create the noticeable pattern of contemplation. I was feeling awful for an unknown reason, but the houndstooth was full of reason and I was appreciating it.

I sat there under the tree for what seemed like a really long time. I picked up a Y-shaped twig. A miniature dowsing rod I thought, and it must be sort of working. Aside from everything being gray, everything was damp or still frozen. I used the dowser to sketch into the dirt around me. It started to rain. The precipitation filling up the swirls of dual lines I just forced into the earth.

 



Weather permitting or not, the circus goes on...



Bave Circus from DuDuF on Vimeo.

A new meaning to swinging by for dinner.

I live in Minnesota. It's frigid cold here half the year.

This is probably why I've daydreamed about having an indoor swing on and off for years and years.

(I love swinging!)

I plan to execute swinging inside year round in the next place I live.

(Sturdy ceiling beams are on the list of essentials in my future residential quarters.)

So of course seeing this table on the Duffy London website excited me greatly.

That's right!

It's a dinner table with eight swinging chairs connected to it, and an overhead light.

Brilliant idea!

Imagine how much fun it would be to eat at this table...

Is it still considered throwing food if you're throwing your whole self?

Either way, I'd allow it. It would be a breeze to clean underneath it.

I've always wondered how the great watchmaker of the universe looks like.

Le Manoir - Animated Short Film from Rem on Vimeo.

Sharpening the Seam Ripper

I came across this a quite some time ago.

I loved it so much I set it as the wallpaper on my computer.

I made the mistake of not attaching the artists name to it.

After months of searching for: art that looks like textile fibers but is actually not strategically placed threads, I finally found the creator of this wonderful piece!!!

Eno Henze

This guy does so many great things!

Like this:

And this:

This too:



This one might be my new favorite:

After spending an hour looking at all his works, I'm sure that I'm inspired to drape on Ruby (my dress form) that I have been sort of neglecting since the New Year began.

To the fabric store!