My [humble] contribution to the Occupy Movement

Here’s to the three fearless women who burned the midnight oil mad-drawing, brainstorming, smoking…and listening to a French radio station. Here’s to completing a full series of state-of-the-art presentation drawings in one night. Here’s to our kick-ass boards and efficient subversiveness. Here’s to your question, La Gitane : “How does it feel to be talented?” [...]

Read Full Post »

Winter Venice

In the winter, Venice is like an abandoned theatre. The play is finished, but the echoes remain. Arbit Blatas To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius. Alexander Herzen [...]

Read Full Post »

The Secret of the Lost Umbrella | Essay on Orange

I was recently reunited with luggage lost 45 days ago. Three items were missing: a bottle of Cinema Eau De Parfum by Yves Saint Laurent, a beloved collaged orange umbrella bought in Barcelona and a pair of Sketchers shoes. Go figure. Immediately i set out to substitute my lost umbrella. As said in one Law [...]

Read Full Post »

Thinking With My Hands

“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another  for the rest of my days.” Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 8   I have to thank my colleague Alan Rosenblum for [...]

Read Full Post »

Upon discovering ‘Meditations in an Emergency’

From The Best American Poetry:   The title of the book began as a very sophisticated literary joke, an allusion to John Donne’s “Meditations on Emergent Occasions.” But as sometimes happened in O’Hara’s poetry, the joke turned out to have a surplus of meaning. His poems are meditations — but not the kind that comes [...]

Read Full Post »

Fabric City, Kisses and Beads

The Fabric City is finally finished! Yay! Back to collages and sketches now. From this… …to a process of cutting and puzzle-making… to this: Tomorrow the ‘city’  will be cut and applied to a presently plain backpack and signed. I also want to share this impromptu jewelry design, my second, kindly modeled! Finally, work inspired by [...]

Read Full Post »

Tales of Salt Cities

“Here is a splendid volume from the Terry Gillam school of fictional photography… The book comes in a sturdy slipcase and features complex landscapes, painstakingly created, and digitally peopled by actors playing out scenes which conjure up a mystical Middle Eastern civilisation. Enigmatic, but beautiful.” AG Magazine “This is a beautifully structured text with an [...]

Read Full Post »

La Gattamorta and Auden on Love, Time

    As I Walked Out One Evening   by W. H. Auden   As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat. And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: ‘Love has no ending. [...]

Read Full Post »

{From our current selection}

    Photo from Inspired Goodness.   Founded in 2008, Inspired Goodness is a custom invitation and paper goods studio located in Brooklyn, NY.   —————————————————————————-   Notable books:   A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke Parisian Chic: A Style Guide by Ines De La Fressange      

Read Full Post »

Rain of Frogs [fragments, poems, movie lines]

    The Pretty Parking Lot   I have dreamt of perfect poems faded like dewdrops upon awakening   About mice and buildings built by men   Cities are sentences that haunt me   Book thieves, foreign movies… the line is thin between memories and reverie   The fog has lifted the rain felt soft [...]

Read Full Post »

Cities and Abstract Art

  Marrakesh. From ‘Domestic Architecture of the Arab Region’.          

Read Full Post »

Love Quatraine

Read Full Post »

Hybrid Notes : Bjarke Ingels. San Diego. 02.25.2011

Bjarke Ingels came to speak to our school Friday night. The venue was the Museum of Natural History in scenic Balboa Park. I am still blown away by the lecture and, more importantly, the message. It was truly (r)evolutionary.  The fact that BIG’s insanely brilliant concepts not only get built but a) give back to [...]

Read Full Post »

The Flâneur: A Radical-Chic Icon

” There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flâneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the division of labour which makes people into specialists. It was also [...]

Read Full Post »

Creativity! [dedicated to you!]

Everywhere I turn these days i see the word Creativity..could this be a sign …cause I have not been posting that much??? This post is more like…four…but so be it. A dear student let me borrow this fantastic book: The Creative License: Giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are. What a wonderful [...]

Read Full Post »

Dispatches from Milano: Sketching and Card Making

 In the monastery adjacent this church, just a few minutes’ stroll from my house, one can find Leonardo Da Vinci’s ’Last Supper’. The apse (widely attributed to Donato Bramante, and dated around 1490) is significant as it signals a crucial transition from the Late Gothic style of the nave to a splendid Northern Italian Renaissance in the [...]

Read Full Post »

Think Better (and multiply)

Think better, and multiply- The Vedic way. Thank you for existing, Open Culture.

Read Full Post »