oh jaaaaasper

"Take an object.

Do something to it.

Do something else to it.

Do something else to it."

and...

"Make something.

Find a use for it.

AND OR

Invent a function.

Find an object."

-Jasper Johns

uhm

i shouldn't be making anything today. i am wayyyy too impatient and i will ruin everything in my path. that said....

yup

it was an attempt to make a cloud

i did not make the "couch". i found that in miami at a drug lord's garage sale. that and my rollerblades.

just kidding...?

and the tiles...

done with ceramics for a bit

sweet, sweet love. on giant doilies

project #2 of the night down.

i reeeeally need to get a serious camera.

yo g

most people eat when they're sad... or cry. i buy gold lamay and listen to salt-n-pepa. it's not quite done, it's clearly missing an imperative adornment.

thank you courtney. hope your neck keeps it real (it snowed last night!?!).

dear santa

please bring me this book by sheila hicks. it's only $250 used on amazon or $279 on ebay...

"I found my voice and my footing in my small work.

It enabled me to build bridges between art, design,

architecture, and decorative arts."

-Sheila Hick, 2004

guns don't kill people

ugh. no scanner or wacom. just turkey and pie.

dendrytic ice crystals

as seen under a microscope via wikipedia

icecream birds : when you're not around she eats pancakes.

just take a moment to go here:

http://icecreambirds.blogspot.com/

steph had a secret blog for years (i think only 3 people knew about it and we were sworn to secrecy). she recently gave it a facelift and came out of hiding. my friend leigh also has a secret blog. i search for it in my spare time.

castles

also, this happened today

betsey johnson yo.

castles

i've been considering make believe.

contemplating tunnels as metaphors.

revisiting fairy tales.

daydreaming.

and trying to figure out what to do with all of this glitter.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.

Nothing would be what it is because everything would be

what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be,

and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

-Alice, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

via ffffound!

see. i've been up to something.

magnetic fields

cuz i'm the luckiest guyyy on the lower east siiide,

and i've got wheels if you wanna go for a ride.

listen here

my favorite song, lyrically speaking

parentheses by the blow

Some philosophies fuel a belief in the self,
constructed to keep one's goods on one's own shelf.
Built well you're a strong letter I,
with the feet on the ground and the head to the sky.
Now and then you can bend,
it's okay to lean over my way.
You fear that you can't do it all,
and you're right.
Even diligent day takes relief every day
from its work making light from the night.

And when you're holding me
we make a pair of parentheses.
There's plenty space to encase
whatever weird way my mind goes,
I know I’ll be safe in these arms.

If something in the deli aisle makes you cry
you know I’ll put my arm around you
and I’ll walk you outside,
through the sliding doors,
why would I mind?

You're not a baby if you feel the world.
All of the babies can feel the world. That's why they cry.

video here

go bearcats

vogue via coute que coute

guest blogger... well kind of, she doesn't really know it

so my friend steph is awesome. in a perfect world steph would be a principal dancer for the new york city ballet, but instead she chooses to design holiday sweaters for a large department store. it's cool though because she gets to wear penguin sweaters when it's too cold in the office AND she has time to email me awesome images because she's sooooo inspired.

these are the images that were included in today's email. sorry, ain't got the deets.

see. it's just this easy

because i'm a sap and it really might be this easy.

except the promise ring thing is a little straight... though i do have one made out of a paperclip and rhinestone someone gave me a long time ago.

via ffffound via thatjeffreykid

elisa strozyk

more here

"i love you" blog/magazine

rarely does a day go by that i don't think about dolly parton, panties.... unicorns. click here for your viewing pleasure

wednesday already?

lucille tenazas : good advice from this morning's talk

"... will your work excite you just the same in 50 years?" (in reference to looking back on your body of work)

"Always assume that your client or audience is as smart, if not smarter than you."

-Lucille Tenazas, graphic designer

fast company : smart design : "femme den"

recent article from fast company here

tramp stamp barbie

hahaha... uhm... discuss amongst yourselves

mike mills : hair shoes love and honesty

sorry my youtubes are not werkin. but his website is lovely and sure to lead you to other wonderful things. check it here

garance doré

god bless her

it's a start

we have a first "project" and it's pretty sweet and all... the deal is we're supposed to pick three contemporary design themes and explore them through metaphor, metonymy, irony, etc.

these are my first drafts. i've made some statements, so feel free to argue or send your opinion.

things will be pared down upon revision. aesthetically, linguistically, so on, so forth. eventually i will be focusing on one theme, so send in your votes. i may or may not take them into consideration.

NASA : astronomy picture of the day archive

if you're not using this... you should. it's amazing. the photo above is of star trails over oregon taken on my birthday 09.09.09. woo woo ha cha cha

missed connections and george nelson

oh how i love looking at missed connections on craigslist. if anyone has any success stories we, the public, would love to hear from you.

also on the topic of connections... allow me to insert a couple paragraphs from an article written by george nelson in 1979.

"We had a modest office and I felt that if I had one of these

big hanging spheres from Sweden, it would show that I was 

really with it, a pillar of contemporary design. One day Bonniers,

a swedish import store in New York, announced a sale of these

lamps. I rushed down with one of the guys in the office and found

one shopworn sample with thumbmarks on it and a price of $125.

It is hard to remember what $125 meant in the late forties. You

could buy a brand new Ford convertible for $640, complete with

rumble seat and white wall tires. This automobile, with motor,

lights, gas tank, and wheels, was only five times the cost of this one

lamp. I was furious and was stalking angrily down the stairs when 

suddenly an image popped into my mind which seemed to have

nothing to do with anything. It was a picture in the New York Times

some weeks before which showed Liberty ships being mothballed

by having the decks covered with netting and then being sprayed with

a self-webbing plastic, and again, whammo! We rushed back to the

office and made a roughly spherical wire frame; we called various

places until we located the manufacturer of the spiderwebby spray.

By the next night we had a plastic-covered lamp, and when you put a

light in it, it glowed, and it did not cost $125."

-George Nelson on "Peak Experiences and the Creative Act"

at the International Design Conference in Aspen, 1979

(the rest of the article is really great too)

this morning in summation

gendered design.

participatory design.

slow design.

post structuralism.

memphis.

patricia urquoila.

corn dogs.

in memory of michael jackson : one for the children

everyday it's a gettin closer : a thesis statment

so. i'm finally back in school and i've spent the summer wading through articles, theses, philosophy, my work as i know it... so on and so forth, but i am finally coming to a clearing. lately i've found myself writing down really cheesy statements such as "the space between"or "moments of beauty". 

"traditional" design as we know it is often referred to as "problem solving" right? usually. typically.

however, i can only think of a few instances where agonizing over the color and texture of a rubber grip is absolutely necessary. appropriate for medical design definitely. appropriate for a can opener? not in my opinion. we solve problems but in the meantime we are taking away moments (besides, co-moulding is disgusting). the fingerprint left on the metal, the coolness of the organic material. 

it's fast food vs. a sit down meal. Even more so, it is take out vs. watching the gradient of a vegetable reveal itself as a knife slices through.

lawn chairs? maybe when i'm 80 (but hopefully not). i'd rather sit in the grass or sand. tediously choosing the perfect spot. finding the tree that cradles your back.

this is life. this is nature. it is elemental and it is beautiful.

so are we problem solving or are we fast forwarding? and just a little fyi... in case you don't speak greek, the word "beauty" derives from "kallos" which means calling or "to be of one's hour". which is interesting.

that's all i got for now.

cocorosie

two sisters from the united states living in france mixing beat boxing, operatic vocals and children's toys among other things. check out their website here or for more background information go to their page on wikipedia here and here for a youtube video of one of my favorites "by your side".

tying things to other things

09/09/09

will there be cupcakes?

my mother was only in labor for a 1/2 hour with me. explains a lot... the claustrophobia, the impatience, the transience....

off to northern michigan

totally, definitely O-U-T for the weekend. i don't even think verizon works up there.

peace homeskillets and happy labor day. woo!

baptistry of st. john : pisa, italy

i took quite a few photos of cathedral ceilings, but this was my favorite.  the dome produces beautiful acoustic effects.

detroit airport : detroit, mi

you know, the detroit airport is really something else. if i were rich, i'd buy tickets just so i could spend the afternoon in the nwa technofuturedancetime tunnel and/or riding the tram. or... staring at the ceiling.

concorde station : paris, france

they painted the ceiling yellow and the beams purple. DID YOU HEAR ME? THEY PAINTED THE CEILING YELLOW AND THE BEAMS PURPLE.

and there's such a lovely scalloped pattern...

shampoo monologues

tonight in the shower i finally read my shampoo bottle, which went something like this:

"it's not about the color of your skin or the texture of your hair."

highlight of today

this evening on antiques roadshow a lady brought in one of the first macintosh computers for appraisal.

not sure what this means, but i think it means something...

uh oh

just signed up for a tumblr account... decisions decisions

"whatever whatever"

whtvrwhtvr

 

our minds are brilliant curators. peter's even moreso.

so i went to europe

it was a month long tour of milan, venice, florence, cinque terre, cannes, paris, amsterdam and berlin. along the way there were family members, old friends and new friends. hope you enjoy the photos.

pas de deux : cannes, france

brocade and other fine things : versaille, france

versaille was perhaps the most ridiculous thing i have ever seen. m and louie were nuts. clearly.