“The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world;
I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled, the more I gain.”

- Susan B. Anthony

Life is like a rollercoaster

Worth listening to again:

"I really, truly believe that people can sense care. In the same way that they can sense carelessness. I think this is about respect that we have for each other. If you expect me to buy something where all I can sense is carelessness, actually I think that is personally offensive. It's offensive culturally, because it shows a disregard for our fellow human. ... Good design for me starts with that determination and motivation and I don't think there's anything, ever, that's good that's come from carelessness. The sad thing is that so much of what we're surrounded by in the physical world that is a product of manufacture, so much of it testifies to carelessness. The one good thing about that is if you do care it is really conspicuous."

- Jonathan Ive, Apple's Head Designer
via

endurance

“Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins.
Beyond talent lie all the usual words:
discipline,
love,
luck,
but, most of all, endurance.”

- James Baldwin, Paris Review Interviews II

via

right on

Life Lessons from a dog

1. Learn at least one impressive trick.
2. Shake when wet.
3. Wag.
4. When off the leash, it is best to run to a loved one.
5. Accept treats from strangers energetically yet cautiously.
6. Roll in grass whenever possible.
7. Wonderful things can sometimes be found in the trash.
8. Barking is a last resort.
9. Know when the right time is to let go of what you love.
10. True life partners do exist.


via

Thoughts on Aging & Life

This is wonderful ~


I remember hearing this interview when it originally aired -
Neat to see it commemorated with an homage like this.

(via)

Israel and Iran: A love story

making a difference with graphic design!

At times I struggle to justify what it means for me to be an artist within the defined priorities of our modern society. I liked reading these words:

At the recent 2012 Kennedy Center Honors (the nation's highest award for those who influence American culture through the arts), President Obama described all of the honorees as artists who "inspired us to see things in a new way, to hear things differently, to discover something within us or to appreciate how much beauty there is in the world. It's that unique power that makes the arts so important."

(This year's honorees included David Letterman, Dustin Hoffman, and Led Zeppelin)

the possibility for learning never disappears

This is a great little watch - these ideas about artists' potential roles in society inspire me!



Note to self: don't lose my "capacity for astonishment"

***P.S. his name is "Milton Glaser" not Martin...

my kind of week

(a.k.a. this week's happy list...)

1. Monday: moving around my monitors and workplace set-up - it's that thing like moving your same old living room furniture around: feels like a whole new place

2. Tuesday: after a rough month for Cookie, seeing her return to her feisty, cuddly self

3. Wednesday: starting new painting classes!

4. Thursday: celebrating my dad's birthday at John Lithgow show then Black & Blue with family

5. Friday: touring Wendell Castle's studio! - So inspiring to see a team of highly skilled men & women creating wonderful pieces representing Wendell's vision. As always happens: through learning about their process, I gained better appreciation for the final pieces. I can't find good photos online (especially of the specific pieces we saw, his newest works) that quite convey how inviting the pieces felt in person - you just wanted to lay all over them. And at age 80, they say his studio is busier than it's ever been!

Bonuses, all week: catching up with Spring/Summer 2013 Fashion Weeks around the globe... last week: NYC; this week: London + Milan! blah blah blah run around barefoot while the weather still allows!

Click icon in lower right corner to watch this full screen

5 things that made me happy this week

1. Using the rain barrel with the hose to water the garden for the first time - gravity fed, it works perfectly:



2. Conversation at a luncheon in Naples:

Woman 1: "You have no idea until you're 70 how young your 70s really are. Truly... It's incredible!!!"
Woman 2: "How would you know?"
Woman 1: "I'm 72!"

3. Evening walks through the village with a friend

4. Chocolate vegan ice cream (made with coconut milk) + roasted almonds + fresh raspberry sauce

5. Opening ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics in London!!!


***Update: On August 2, 2012 they won 2 Olympic gold medals!!!***

the farther one travels, the less one knows

"By having the money we found that money wasn’t the answer. Because we had lots of material things that people spend their entire life to try and get. We managed to get them at quite an early age, and it was good, really, because we learned that that wasn’t it. We still lacked something and that thing sometimes is the thing that religion is trying to give people."

- George Harrison, from George Harrison: Living in the Material World (HBO documentary by Martin Scorsese - a good watch!) during part of his description about why he pursued enlightenment in India & Indian music

Beatles - "The Inner Light"
(lyrics reference the Tao Te Ching)

picture a bright blue ball just spinning free... dizzy with possibilities...

Hoping to hear Bob Weir sing this tonight!


"Throwing Stones" - the Grateful Dead 

(Words by John Perry Barlow; music by Bob Weir)

Picture a bright blue ball, just spinning, spinnin' free,
Dizzy with eternity.
Paint it with a skin of sky,
Brush in some clouds and sea,
Call it home for you and me.

A peaceful place - or so it looks from space,
A closer look reveals the human race.
Full of hope, full of grace
Is the human face,
But afraid we may lay our home to waste.

There's a fear down here we can't forget.
Hasn't got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Now watch as the ball revolves
And the nighttime falls.
Again the hunt begins,
Again the bloodwind calls.
By and by again, the morning sun will rise,
But the darkness never goes
From some men's eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets,
Staking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat,
It's you and me.
You and me.

Click flash blade in ghetto night,
Rudie's looking for a fight.
Rat cat alley, roll them bones.
Need that cash to feed that jones.
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Commissars and pin-stripe bosses
Roll the dice.
Any way they fall,
Guess who gets to pay the price.
Money green or proletarian gray,
Selling guns instead of food today.

So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Heartless powers try to tell us
What to think.
If the spirit's sleeping,
Then the flesh is ink
History's page, it is thusly carved in stone.
The future's here, we are it, we are on our own...

If the game is lost,
Then we're all the same.
No one left to place or take the blame.
We can leave this place an empty stone
Or this shining ball of blue we can call our home.

So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And the politicians throwin' stones,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Shipping powders back and forth
Singing black goes south and white comes north.
In a whole world full of petty wars
Singing I got mine and you got yours.
And the current fashion sets the pace,
Lose your step, fall out of grace.
And the radical, he rant and rage,
Singing someone's got to turn the page.
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing just leave well enough alone.
But his pants are down, his cover's blown...

And the politicians throwing stones,
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
'Cuz it's all too clear we're on our own.

Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

Picture a bright blue ball,
Just spinning, spinnin', free.
Dizzy with the possibilities.

Nora Ephron quotes

“And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.”

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

RIP Nora Ephron.

15 Things Charles and Ray Eames Teach Us

01. Keep good company
02. Notice the ordinary
03. Preserve the ephemeral
04. Design not for the elite but for the masses
05. Explain it to a child
06. Get lost in the content
07. Get to the heart of the matter
08. Never tolerate “O.K. anything.”
09. Remember your responsibility as a storyteller
10. Zoom out
11. Switch
12. Prototype it
13. Pun
14. Make design your life… and life, your design.
15. Leave something behind.

Excerpt from an essay by Keith Yamashita


via Dare+

"In the digital age, don't forget to use your digits!"

excerpt from a helpful little motivational book I've read a few times over lately (it's a quick but potent read) -
Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon:

My favorite cartoonist, Lynda Barry, has this saying: "In the digital age, don't forget to use your digits!" Your hands are the original digital devices. Use them.

While I love my computer, I think computers have robbed us of the feeling that we're actually making things. Instead, we're just typing keys and clicking mouse buttons. This is why so-called knowledge seems so abstract. The artist Stanley Donwood, who's made all the album artwork for the band Radiohead, says computers are alienating because they put a sheet of glass between you and whatever is happening. "You never really get to touch anything that you're doing unless you print it out," Donwood says.

Just watch someone at their computer. They're so still, so immobile. You don't need a scientific study (of which there are a few) to tell you that sitting in front of a computer all day is killing you, and killing your work. We need to move, to feel like we're making something with our bodies, not just our heads.

Work that only comes from the head isn't any good. Watch a great musician play a show. Watch a great leader give a speech. You'll see what I mean.

You need to find a way to bring your body into your work. Our nerves aren't a one-way street -- our bodies can tell our brains as much as our brains tell our bodies. You know that phrase, "going through the motions"? That's what's so great about creative work: If we just start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar, or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table, or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brain into thinking.

This philosophy + today's gorgeous weather = total justification to go outside & paint, something I want to do a lot more of...

As I exited Mertensia Park, I almost missed this completely - the bright dots of color just caught the corner of my eye. Makes me smile to think that even local graffiti artists were inspired by the beauty of nature - depending on the season and time of day, I'm calling that a tree with autumn colors, or a Midsummer Night's fairy lights, or a sugarplum tree...