When Little Creative Genius was in the hospital having an x-ray of his elbow, I was forced to wait in the hallway outside of the room. Bored, and being the observant type that I am, I noticed this – and I could not believe my eyes. Can you believe that someone actually did this? Honestly? When did shoddy craftsmanship become standard? Did the person who did this actually think this was OK? Unbelievable.
A treasury is a feature on Etsy that is an interactive place where members can create handpicked lists of items on Etsy. Occasionally the Etsy staff will promote a member made treasury to the ever changing front page of Etsy. I have been fortunate enough to have been included in several treasuries since joining Etsy, but I have found this one to be particularly beautiful. I can’t really put my finger on why I love it, but I do – and it’s not just because I was featured in it (that’s my umbrella on the far left, third row down). This treasury was created by team member, and very talented felter, Grazina from Lithuania. After seeing Grazina’s beautiful work, I can see how she can put together such a beautiful treasury. Check out these gorgeous slippers, and more of her fabulous work in her shop Felting By Grazim.
Today was collage paper making day. My goal is to have 40 12×12″ collage pieces for the Sparx City Hop taking place on Sept 11, but I would really like to have 50. What you see here is the foundation layer. By the time I am done the paper will look nothing like this.
While I was lying awake from 1-4am this morning, tossing and turning, wondering and worrying, I came across these presidential doodles. I began reading an article written in The Atlantic, and I was instantly riveted. And how could I not be? It was a glimpse into the minds of some of the most powerful men in history. Apparently the article was inspired by the book Presidential Doodles: Two Centuries of Scribbles, Scratches, Squiggles & Scrawls from the Oval Office (Amazon link).
In 1982, Time Magazine submitted the presidential doodles of Herbert Hoover to a graphologist who declared him to be a “very confused president.” More recently the doodles of England’s Tony Blaire were submitted to a graphologist who declared that his doodles revealed him to be incompetent, unstable, and incapable of completing a task. I question the validity of this next statement, but it was supposedly discovered later that the doodles thought to belong to Tony Blair, actually belonged to Bill Gates. I don’t really know about these so called “experts”, nor do I really care. But I do find it altogether fascinating and I’m really hoping that my local library has the book.
Apparently Dwight D. Eisenhower (example above) was the most prolific presidential doodler of them all. It is said that he would doodle on just about anything.
I am particularly interested in the doodles of John F. Kennedy because they are exactly like my DH’s – textual, with repeated words and phrases. DH does the exact same thing and then he’ll trace over the word over and over again until the line is like an 1/8″ thick.
I took the Little Creative Geniuses to a Fencepiration workshop in our community the other day. Fencepiration is a project where a chain link construction fence is taken from necessity to art using recycled materials. The goal of the project is to turn a boring, unsightly construction fence into an inspiring and visually interesting piece of public art using recycled materials. The streetscape will progress in a panorama of nature’s four seasons along it’s length. Here are some of the flowers the Geniuses and I made from recycled aluminum cans. It was really very fun. These flowers have given me an idea for Christmas gifts.
Here is a New York Times article on artisans selling their work online. Susan and I met John Unger, who appears on the first page of the article, in Ann Anbor this summer. His fire bowls are amazing!
Assemblage is about combining things that have no business being together.
-Micahel DeMeng
This work was created by Teresa Yates of cedarjunction. You can learn more about her on her blog Cedar Junction Studio.
I saw this on a recent road trip through Pittsburgh, PA. Signs like this crack me up. I have another one from Whole Foods that I’ll have to download from my phone and share with you later.
It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I don’t know who it was, but a guest on Alison Lee’s Craftcast podcast was talking about play. Not play as in light hearted but play as in open ended exploration – which by the way, we as humans tend to have a lot of difficulty with. Her take on it was this: We are taught that our endeavors are supposed to have a discernible, quantifiable outcome. And so we don’t play. We don’t realize that that what is quantifiable to one person is not necessarily important or quantifiable to another. We think that there is some sort of standard, but there isn’t. Yet it is so important to creativity to play.