04 October 2011
03 October 2011
Shabd Dye Workshop
shabd is teaching a tie dye workshop at the textile art center. i HIGHLY recommend signing up!details below.- - - -
Fiber Reactive Dyes with ShabdLearn the process of Dyeing with Shabd, one of our generations leading dye-artists. In this 3 week class, Shabd will teach you the basic procedures for dyeing with Procion dyes, by immersion, painting and tie-dye, with both cellulose and protein fibers. You will learn various tying, dying and shibori techniques, as well as basic color theory and design concepts for dying. It will be fun, and colorful and bright! Discover the dyer in you and design your own dye patterns! Students will focus on swatches to perfect technique and in the last class work on individual projects.3 Session
Sundays 2:00 - 6:00PM, October 16 - October 30
The Textile Art Center in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
01 October 2011
Craft Swap 2011
- I took 3 photos and assembled a triptych with those photos
- I received photos from 3 different people and could do "something" with those photos to make them more mine
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| SML |
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| Original from Sue |
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| Sue's Trees |
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| Sabrina |
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| Sabrina's Watery Scene |
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| Ayaka's Textures of Japan |
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| Ayaka's Wood Textures |
26 September 2011
Tea Container Craftsman at TORTOISE General Store
Today until 9/25 Sunday, if you purchase any size canister, Mr. Yagi will give you a free scooper with your name engraved in kanji. 
Please take your time to visit us to see the amazing craftsmanship. 23 September 2011
Beautiful necklaces
Apparently, my reputation as a serious cat lady precedes me. One of the funniest things that kept happening at last week’s book tour events was people coming up to me to show me pictures of their cats. One very kind crafter in Boston even made me a stuffed animal that looked just like Turk. I’m officially that girl. It’s alright though — the stray cat hairs on my coat gave me away ages ago. So it’s no surprise that I’m kind of loving these handmade cat lockets by Lee May Foster at The Shop Floor Project. Kooky? Yep. Cute? Totally. You can pick up several different styles right here. Two paws up. Sorry, I’ll stop now. xo, grace
*If you’re not into cats, the celestial-themed necklaces are lovely, too.
18 October 2010
Schooling Fish by Troika
Troika sent us documentation of Shoal, their newest public artwork for the Corus building in Queens Quay East on Toronto's Waterfront. 467 independent, iridescent objects that resemble fishing lures "liquify" the ceiling of a 50m long corridor, mimicking the interdependency patterns seen in schooling fish. According to Troika, this is meant to change "the spatial experience of the corridor while opening up the surrounding architecture infinitely towards Lake Ontario."
02 September 2010
American Museum of Natural History’s Explorer App
A couple of weeks ago, the American Museum of Natural History released Explorer, an iPhone app and museum guide that has gotten rave reviews. The application makes use of several state of the art technologies, one of which is an indoor Wi-Fi network which allows the Explorer app to pinpoint a user’s exact location in the museum and direct them to specific exhibits and even the closest bathroom. It is a prime example of effective brand utility, augmenting a museumgoer’s experience while placing the organization’s logo on the mobile user’s home screen.
What is probably just as impressive as the museum’s app is its effort to promote it. AMNH is pushing the application using traditional PR and advertising. Once in the museum, posters educate those waiting in line about the app and how to rent an iPod touch. The ticket stub announces another of its apps: “Dinosaur iPhone app free download at AMNH.ORG/APPs.” Of course, Explorer is the first app users see when visiting this URL. Certain exhibits have stickers with iPhones on them as a call-to-action. Ads are visible across the entire museum, it is clear the message AMNH wants to get across.
What’s important to realize here, is the power of mobile when properly integrated. As the above image depicts, brand utility plus advertising will yield the best results. Without backing up a mobile application or on-device campaign with advertising, PR, or existing properties, efforts could easily fall flat. We’ve talked to agencies where a client’s refusal to promote an app has resulted in just that.
Another thing to keep in mind is that not all information is meant to be provided through mobile phones just because it can be. Sometimes a “traditional” placard or sticker on an object makes a lot more sense than building an augmented reality application to display the same text. The experience for the user should be as frictionless as possible, and we must consider every medium’s strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Explorer, the mobile phone did what nothing else really can — locate and track a physical individual in order to provide contextual content. Through a combination of the innovative and the obvious, AMNH made a trip to the museum a lot more fun and worthwhile.
Previous coverage of museums using mobile:
Oklahoma Museum Curates with Mobile
MoMa Embraces SMS
Hit Museums and Galleries in Europe
Worry Isn't Work (via HBR Blog)
Many of us have grown up thinking that if we are properly self-punishing then we are somehow being responsible. "What, I'm a nervous wreck — how could I possibly take on more?" On the other hand, if, God forbid, we are feeling carefree, we have this nagging sense that we're being downright irresponsible, certain that if we don't get right back to self-flagellation then the other shoe is going to drop. And hard. We don't correlate our sense of responsibility with what we are actually producing. We correlate it with how hard we are being on ourselves.
Thus anything that's fun cannot possibly be work, and everything that's unpleasant is.
I can hunch over my computer screen for half the day churning frenetically through e-mails without getting much of substance done, all the while telling myself what a loser I am, and leave at 6:00 p.m. feeling like I put in a full day. And given my level of mental fatigue, I did! I can spend my Saturday afternoon worrying about financial ruin to the point of exhaustion, and my inner critic is satisfied. But clear my mind with a 30-minute meditation, go for a 45-minute morning walk, or leave the office for an hour to decompress and get a healthy lunch — all of which would make me more productive for the day — and the voices inside my head start screaming, "Infidel!"
(Those of you who don't suffer from this tendency toward self-criticism, please comment and let the rest of us know your secret.)
We can trace a lot of our modern dysfunction to our Puritan roots. Historian Perry Miller wrote that "without some understanding of Puritanism...there is no understanding of America."
Historian Stephen Innes noted, "In no other colony could the most industrious women and men, who throughout their lifetimes had striven to 'improve [their] Time and Talents for God's glory,' daily lacerate themselves with accusations of 'selfishness...' and the overwhelming conviction that they were...the most 'unproffitable' of the Lord's servants."
Historian Amanda Porterfield observed that "American missionary thought involved a strong investment in self-criticism that was rooted in the biblical concern about the need for awareness of sin and, more specifically, in the Puritan preoccupation with self-assessment."
Sound familiar?
The Puritans had a strong work ethic. They also burned witches at the stake and massacred Native American women and children. We need new role models.
Unfortunately, the high-pressure business school atmosphere isn't the best place to look. The fantasies are just different; hyperanxiety about failing grades gets conflated with being responsible and getting an education. The pressure the VC culture puts on start-ups does more to induce stress than creativity. And don't get me started on the nonprofit sector. It's the sacristy for self-criticism.
Worry isn't work. Being stressed out isn't work. Anxiety isn't work. Entertaining a sense of impending doom isn't work. Incessant internal verbal punishment isn't work. Indulging the great unknown fear in your own mind isn't work. Hating yourself isn't work.
Work is the manifestation of value, and anyone who tells you that a person whose mind is 50% occupied with anxiety is more likely to manifest value is a person who isn't manifesting much.
It's OK to take care of yourself. To take time to exercise. By all accounts, exercise improves brain function. It's OK to eat well, and to slow down enough to eat consciously and appreciate the food. Proper nutrition improves brain function as well. Go on vacation. Meditate. Take a break each week for an hour to see a therapist, or a movie, or stop in a church, if that's your practice. Sit quietly on your porch in the evening and reflect. Chaining yourself to your desk is no more correlated to productivity than mental self-annihilation.
After all, who is likely to be the more productive contributor to the company, and to the world — the person who is healthy, rested, well-balanced, full of energy, and clear of mind, or the sleep-deprived, overweight, heart-attack-waiting-to-happen, psychologically unexamined, self-critical maniac? Who is more likely to be present enough to see the next breakthrough? Who is more likely to analyze problems clearly, for what they really are, instead of what they are assumed to be?
We have to rethink what it means to work and to be productive. We have to disentangle self-hatred from responsibility, self-criticism from self-care.
What does re-thinking mean in this case? Start thinking of being hard on yourself as being irresponsible. Start thinking of wasting half of your brain power on fantasies about your own destruction as self-indulgent. Conflate self-negativity with laziness. Start thinking of time for yourself as being responsible. Start thinking of a healthy mid-day meal as essential to your productivity, time away from your desk as productive.
In short, start thinking the opposite of what we've been taught since, well, since the Puritans. We stopped burning witches at the stake four hundred years ago. It's time we stopped doing it to ourselves.
