And this is probably one of them: jenstark.com. Seriously, this blew my mind. It’s incredibly beautiful and conceptually rich. Jen went to MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) which is a unique creative community. The work I’ve seen come out of there is personal, compelling and interesting on a bunch of levels.
Just lovely.
November 2006
I cut out interesting patterns to use in other creative works. Also, snippets from magazines that have relevance to what I’m thinking about…or what I want to think about. The visuals on this page became watercolored gift bags that I used to wrap my holiday gifts. (Helped with the watercolor skills, yea!) The article on the left is a slime mold sighting from Smithsonian. And the small green-striped card was the enclosure card for my 10 free little Moo cards.
I subscribe to 2 Google alerts: “prime numbers” and “slime mold“. Both are hobbies of mine. When this gem came in, I realized that slime mold is more than a hobby…it’s how I learn about the coolest stuff out there.
Science Daily reports on the Open-source Replicator: a home-built 3-D printer that could launch a revolution. Want an iPod? Imagine being able to buy the files from Apple, download ‘em and fab your own at home with the Fab@Home DIY maker. Brings a whole new meaning to online commerce.
How does it work?
“A 3-D printer has a small nozzle that scans back and forth across a surface, depositing tiny droplets of quick-hardening plastic. After each scan, the nozzle moves up a notch and scans again until it has built up the complete object, layer by layer. With multiple nozzles or a means of swapping supply cartridges, the machine can create objects made of many different materials.”
A few are up and running and being used for important purposes like making cake decorations and chocolate sculptures. (oh, and a fully working battery, complete with case.)
The link to slime mold? Biologists at Rockefeller University are using the Fab@Home to deposit slime mold cells to see how distribution influences their ability to form colonies.
Awesome.
Math is fun. Math mechanics are yukky. It’s the paradox of my brain that while the concepts and patterns of math rule much of my creative thinking, I seriously can’t add or multiply to save my life. Just never, never ask me to recite the multiplication tables for 6 or 8. It’s just not gonna happen.
But patterns are fun, and they make math fun. A few years ago I worked on a very mathy project using phrases and javascript rollovers to create a set of combinatorial statements. It’s still fun to play with.
December, 2006
Sometimes pages look fun. I’m partial to sticking things in the book and integrating them into the page. Maps and diagrams are the most common things that result. This is a page from craft night last year. Looking at it puts me back there among the smart, sassy women creating frightening cookies and writing holiday cards.
Sometimes pages just suck. But who cares? It’s all about putting things down. This one’s a reminder to work on my watercolor skills, heh.
I’ve been concerned about a blog taking over the space and work that for years has gone into my sketchbook. But the more I think about it, the more convinced that they are deeply complimentary, not competitive. Sure, they both take time, but each has it’s unique place.
What got me excited was looking at how they can activate each other…sitting in a park or drawing from life in the great world outside the machine is a very different thing from blogging at my computer. They are just very different tools.
So what I’ve decided to do is snapshot some pages, and then put them here. And for blog-first ideas that I want to extend out of the machine, I’ll print and stick. I think that the blog and the sketchbook will be great friends.
Sometimes (okay…more than sometimes) when all the plates are spinning and deadlines loom, I can get a bit…frazzled. This is not a good thing. The only good thing about it is when someone helps by reminding me of the positive, joyous parts of life and work. I’ve started collecting some simple reminders to focus on when things get kerfuffuley.
Calm and Simple: Keep it calm and simple. Right before things collapse into a flow, they seem chaotic and wild…but that’s part of the process. Keeping mindful of the calm and simple, the elegance and the flow can get me through to the other side.
Keep the Big Wheel Turning: Whatever task is at hand, it should always be in service to a greater goal: rethinking the way a company serves it’s customers; providing a benefit to society; working towards a company vision; helping people feel oriented, smart and successful…these are all part of the big wheels. Thoughtfully linking the work to the big wheel helps provide perspective and enables prioritization. Focus on the big wheel, keep it turning and then it’s worth it to keep on burning for a bit.
Look up: Tej told me this gem: “the difference between optimists and pessimists is that optimists look up; pessimists look down.” So when walking off the burn, when thinking it’s all going to hell, look up. See the sky, the tops of trees, the birds sailing above. Look up, to the higher goals, the open space of possibility.
Take the Sunny Path: This one’s from Rachel. When in the midst of complexity, don’t go down the path of worry and stress. Visualize the fork in the road, and take the path that’s light and dappled with sunshine. Don’t muck about in the weeds. The positive, easy way is the one that gets the best ideas to move forward.
It all started with an innocent request from Amanda:
“What are the top 10 books, papers, websites, or objects had the most influence on your work, inspired you, or made you a better person?”
Hell, why stop at 10? Here’s the list of lists…no real order, but all very, very influential.
10 books that influenced greatly (+1 for luck)
People
Ray & Charles Eames : For their creative partnership, the many ways they communicated ideas and philosophies (media, making things, talking, writing) and their random, belligerent and spry genius.
Bill Strickland : His work in urban communities is transformative. He cajoles, engages, inspires and evokes. And then he builds stuff.
Hildegard von Bingham : What’s not to love about a mystic medieval abbess? Her paintings of divine visions are surreal and swimmy with symbolism. She thought, painted, wrote, kept the power-hungry dukes at bay and composed music.
Douglas Hofstadter : Best known for the classic Godel, Escher, Bach. But before I found that, I read his book of essays (Metamagical Themas - Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern). His mind is supple, his curiosity insatiable. And he’s funny, in a way that in Boston would be called wicket smaahht. Anyone debating the gender-neutrality of “he” will squirm reading his not-very-funny satire essay.
Places & Communities
The Exploratorium : The inner workings of the world flayed open and on display. They host inventive researchers and by making the outputs of research displays and experiences, the magic of science becomes a full day of fun.
The Crucible : There is no other place to really get down and dirty and make stuff. Using fire, metal and muscle, the Crucible is more than a nonprofit arts facility…it’s a community of thinkers, creators, makers in a sandbox of big, powerful and flaming tools. The ethos that emerges? Collaboration, co-creation and shared safety. Powerful stuff.
Cacophony Society : In the beginning there was cacophony. And then there was Burning Man. But the cacophonists blazed the trail. At my first event (meeting?) I remember thinking “this is what being an adult is all about.” It was the accessible version of Survival Research Labs.
20 things : Judith gets a gold star. This was my first experience in at-a-distance art swaps. Oh, sure, in college we traded stuff and did collaborative projects, but to have this opportunity (to know these people!) out of college is a real gift. And look now at the creative communities that are hooking into this ethic: flickr, instructables, readymade, Makers…it’s all part of the same mighty river.
Brands
The American Girl brand (specifically the historical characters) : This one comes with a caveat. The whole purpose is for marketing, but the first exposure I had to the American Girl doll phenomenon blew me away. Those people hook into so many values (history, diversity, education, activities, dress-my-doll-like-me, playing) it’s nuts. A comprehensive vision. A goldmine.
IKEA : Distinctive design, inventive products, brilliant packaging and very low prices. And it’s hackable.
Skills
Manipulating Fabrics (the scary book) : The woman who created this book is crazy. Brilliant crazy. Scary crazy. The material is all white cotton. She illustrates, demonstrates and documents every fabric technique I have ever done, seen, heard of or just heard rumors about. This is an incredible example of “take it as far as you can, as long as you can…and you will create magic and inspire the world.” If you have ever held a needle, sewn a button or hemmed a shirt, you will never be the same after seeing this book.
Cardweaving : I’m in my current line of work because of cardweaving. It’s an ancient technique that uses cards as the loom. The cards are punched. How you string the warp threads and how you turn the cards to raise the threads in sequence creates the patterns. Cardweaving was the conceptual basis for the jacquard tapestry machine (1801) which used punched cards to create patterns. And punched cards as information chips lasted a long, long time. Making a cardwoven item feels like very, very slow programming.
Mindmapping : Visual problem-solving, organizing, sorting, extending and documenting. Radiant thinking just got a whole lot easier. After 11 years (the Mind Map book came out in 1996) I still do this at least once a week.
Tools
Hypercard : The first application that I learned after WordPerfect (yes, on those big disks.) Working with hypercard on my little Mac SE30 changed the way I thought about information, data, knowledge. Suddenly, the personal computer was much more than a more efficient typewriter.
Leatherman : I used to carry one everywhere, until they started getting taken by airport security. Better than a Swiss Army Knife, and they fold. Great design, great weight, great use.
Sharpies : ’nuff said. Once a few years ago (for about 6 months) a heavy black sharpie was the only pen I used in my sketchbook. And they smell good. They smell like ideas.
Concepts
Slime Mold : Not an animal, not a plant. When there is food all around, it/they spores out to separate organisms. When food is scarce, they/it glob back together into one organism (not a colony…one single thing) and crawl to better pickin’s. They self-organize, collect to survive and disperse when they can. The perfect cycle of life, and the best example (and metaphor) for creative emergence I’ve ever found.
Prime Numbers : well, duh. Prime numbers are just incredibly beautiful. And sly.
Art
Richard Diebenkorn : In college I worked at an art museum and fell in love with a Diebenkorn painting (Berkeley series, yum! yum!). The more and closer I looked, the more it revealed…his abstract work deepens and blossoms the longer you look. And it’s all just made from paint.
Joseph Cornell : The great collector. He assembled information, memory and history. It’s a code, a riddle, a puzzle. Always intriguing and often twisted with irony.
Remember when it was web-safe or else? Back in 2000, I made a hack for some friends…web-safe crayons. I just found the files while looking around for something that my file system ate. While I didn’t find what I was looking for, I did come across the instructions for making your own box of web-safe crayons.
The materials are easy:
Get creative and surprise your favorite web geek with these gems.
A while back, a friend was feeling down, so I made her a “do-things” die. I found a template on the interwebs, then made my own version of it with a list of things to do by chance. It fits in an envelope and mails great…as long as it’s flat. All you need is a printer, scissors and tape or glue to have your own die! The last step takes some patience…just hang with it.
The template came from Kevin Cook’s paper dice templates (note: if you venture off the dice templates page, beware. It’s blinky-city.) There are a bunch of paper templates…pyramid, standard 6, 8-sided, 10-, 12-, 16-, 20-sided. He’s a total die geek. It’s fascinating to see how many dice you can customize. D&D flashback for sure.
Let me know if you make any custom dice. We can start a diy-die club.
