I loved flipping through the new issue of Utterly Engaged. There is a jaw-dropping fairy tale spread (a photo above) photographed by John Schnack and styled by Alchemy Fine Events and Invitations. And a story on San Francisco's Poetry Store. I also really love that the UE ladies included a great feature on a local charity, ReCreation camp. So often charity is overlooked in the pursuit of beauty. And thank you for including me in the penmanship feature!
Last night I heard artist and designer Nicholas Feltron speak (thank you to Kate Bingaman Burt for turning me on to his work). Feltron is best known for a series of annual reports that illustrate details of his daily life: books read, miles run, photos taken, vegetables eaten, etc (see here). He also started the site Daytum. You will not be surprised to learn that he now works at Facebook.
(That's the question I would have asked had I asked one: "If you didn't work at Facebook, what other company, organization or sector could benefit from your talent?" A student in the back started her question with "Umm...I'm in the sciences, and I think we, and other disciplines, could really use this type of data visualization." And then I wanted to cry thinking about how far the academy has to go to make their work more accessible, meaningful and visually appealing. A friend reports that professors like Shigehisa Kuriyama at Harvard are trying their best to teach creative ways of distilling and presenting information. Hats off for tackling this sisyphean task, which could really use more Feltrons.)
I imagine at every one of his talks, someone asks the obvious question, "Why do you do this and to what end?," as was the case last night. His answer is that he enjoys the process, and quantifying daily life helps him to live more deliberately. But I found this story to be a far more compelling reason:
In 2010, he devoted his annual report to the life of his father, who died that year. Feltron found a rich trove ephemera and records to work with: passports, diaries, receipts, postcards, photos and slides among them (Felt + Wire did a write up here). As you'll see above, he made an atlas of all of the countries and places he could identify that his father visited and lived. He also pieced together his cultural experiences: the movies he went to, books he read, and exhibits he saw. Feltron handed out the report at the memorial service, to his father's dear friends who were in their 70s and 80s. The response was pretty incredible-- to see how a life could be pieced together, visually and statistically interpreted, and presented in a slender volume. The friends' memories were jogged by this clear and beautifully digested information, and the stories started pouring in: "Ah, he traveled to Canada that year for our wedding!," for example. Instead of just being a point on a map, it now had a narrative of someone who was there attached to it. And they were remembering at a memorial, shared with others in time and space.
This, it seems, is a different angle to the "to what end" question: we make choices about solipsistically examining and recording ourselves, or knowing and connecting with someone else. And those choices are how we will be remembered.
We just returned from a glorious holiday weekend to Winthrop, Washington (pop. 349) where we visited my sister-in-law, her husband and my adored nieces at their homestead. There are many things I look forward to about our annual visit: the slow pace of small town life; not opening my computer or having need for money; staying at their beautiful cabin in the woods (you can too!); gathering around the wood stove in the evening; Sarah's delicious homemade meals; hearing about adventures from the smokejumper base; art projects and snuggling and story time and puzzles and monkey bars with the girls, who are growing up in an environment best captured by Laura Ingalls Wilder; walks by the river; the veritable Noah's ark of animals (chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, deer, cows, fish and herons have all made appearances at one time or another); rainbow sunsets; the standard daily outfit that includes both muck boots and a tutu; jumping on the trampoline; the hand painted mural of local mountains on the side of the general store.
One of my favorite parts about our trips out there is learning a heap of new skills and information. This time: thinning out (is that the most delicate way of putting it?) their flock of chickens and ducks for the winter; felling a tree and using a chainsaw for the first time; employing the hydraulic splitter; lessons in stacking firewood; new recipes for apple sauce and oatmeal.
When we were cutting down trees, Daren told me about the disappearing practice of using horses to drag logs out of the forest, instead of diesel trucks that destroy the environment (see the above video). "We've gotten too efficient," says Daren. It many ways, I agree.
Often I forget about Kickstarter until one project leads me down the rabbit hole to other worthy projects, as was the case today. I'm grateful that the work I create with Neither Snow for my terrific, visionary clients allows me to support projects like these three, which I backed today. You can too!
I was saddened to read about Theadora van Runkle's death. She designed costumes for Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather II and Bullitt. The first time I saw Bonnie and Clyde I paused the movie at certain scenes so I could take in Faye's outfits (how amazing is that camisole + necklace + cigarette + hat?). But van Runkle was also responsible for less heralded but equally memorable ensembles that appeared in some films of my youth: Troop Beverly Hills and The Butcher's Wife. Do you remember Shelley Long's cape? And those yellow and white backpacks? And when Demi Moore appears in that adorable white dress...and weren't there weird little shoes too?
Speaking of weird: have you ever found an image and then clicked "Search similar images" in Google? I did so with that photo of the troop in the grasses and those are the images that came up. I love how, for this search at least, the algorithm seems to be all about color and composition, and not content.
Listening to Serge + Brigitte and thinking of Theadora today.
{Images via Dolceaficionada and Pretty Terrible/Terrible Pretty}
Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.
This video has been making the rounds, and deservedly so. I was once in a wooden canoe with a camera waiting for a miracle. It's nice to be reminded that, when it comes, it is when you least expect it, and shared with a friend.
...included a screening of "A Miracle in Milan" and "Umberto D." The latter is too heartbreaking to talk about. The former is a very gentle and complex meditation on poverty, and should be required viewing for the Occupy Wall Street Movement (does anyone know if there is a film series there in the park?) and its critics. It begins with a baby found in a cabbage patch and ends with a group of disenfranchised Milanese flying on broomsticks. I found this essay by director Vittorio de Sica illuminating. Especially this part:
[A Miracle in Milan's] content is humanist, but its inspiration, the climate in which the characters evolve their way of thinking and behaving, and their very fate itself, is more closely related to the legends of the North, to Andersen for example, than to the reality of our present-day Latin world. Here is no hymn in praise of poverty—as I read somewhere to my horror—nor any condemnation of riches...This is a fable, slightly wistful perhaps, but quietly optimistic within its poetic framework; if I may be allowed to give it such a name. Men and angels are to be found here, living on good terms together...Finally—to give life to this film of mine, I tried to find the meaning of a little word that likes to hide everywhere; it is goodness. I beg you to tell me if you find it here in these images, if you recognize it at least here and there.
While at the Hammer Museum we witnessed the painting over of Linn Meyers' labor-intensive exhibit (each swirl is composed of thousands of tiny lines) which closed this weekend. All of that work (14 hours a day for 12 days!), in minutes, vanished and hidden under a layer of white paint!
And then, a few days in San Diego with dear cousins, a hike to Torrey Pines, a soak in a hot tub and homemade oatmeal cookies. Genevieve, who is 7 years-old, has a very sophisticated sense of color and pattern. She whipped up an apron and headband. The collages are especially dear. They are made on old envelopes that my mother-in-law gave her niece Tammy (and Genevieve's mother) when she was a little girl in Ohio. Tammy told me that, unlike her daughter, she was very conservative with and protective of her craft supplies, hoarding them and never using the special stuff. Which means now, 30 years later, her daughter has found a new use for them and blazes through the supply with abandon. Don't you remember that feeling of having "special paper"? Maybe the world can be divided into those who use and those who hoard it. I am definitely a hoarder. Which one are you?
I was so honored when Jessie over at Mr. Boddington's asked me to contribute some calligraphy for their spectacular line-up of fall products. My fondness for Mr. Boddington's is well know to readers of this blog. Every time I get a package from them I'm consistently amazed at the unique, beautiful design and high-quality materials. Above: their chevron striped gift tags, four design gift tags, and custom correspondence notes. Hop over to the site for more snaps of their incredible work. Thanks Mr. + Jessie!
I've spent the last week battling a cold and medicating heavily to attend a few cultural events. This weekend: a concert by the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, performing with Apollo's Fire, singing Handel and Vivaldi arias. It was Karen who first turned me on to Philippe while living in New York. "Why aren't you listening to anything while you do calligraphy?" she'd ask. (She is a supreme multitasker, and can often be found with knitting needles, on a treadmill, watching tennis on mute, with Philippe in the background, while pawing at an iPad). And so I'd spend the days with this extraordinary voice. How magical and rare is it to be in the presence of an artist bestowed with a divine gift. Capital D. Capital G. I love ~3:00, in the video above, when the conductor looks over at him with an astonished look, impossible to repress. The best part of the current tour is that all of the performances are at intimate college or church halls. Toronto! Boston! Ann Arbor!
And then, "Bitter Rice," the Italian neo-realist film in which Doris Dowling and Silvana Mangano practically set the screen ablaze.
And finally, watching the Patriots lose, sadly, but always laughing at running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis' nickname: The Law Firm. So much so that I requested this t-shirt for a holiday gift.
I was so excited to get these photos from Theresa and Elias. Hop over to their blog for more snaps and to listen to the romantic song that inspired the project. And great to collaborate with the tattoo studio Supergenius in Seattle. Thanks to all!