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...