“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are,” he says. “You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.”
The Andrew Freedman Home had a short-lived life and was abandoned in the 70’s where large portions of the house laid vacant. Until 2012, when NYC-based public art exhibition curators No Longer Empty sent in a team of talented artists to transform the lot into a commissioned installation. And for Brooklyn-based artist Adam Parker Smith, he used the opportunity to explore our feelings about wealth and masks and The Jones’ with which we keep.
The Fourth of July is one of my favorite summer holidays, full of starry nights and bonfire stories and watermelon seeds. Enjoy your celebration, and if you’ve got some antsy littles hanging around, might I suggest tackling this sweet DIY firecracker craft?
I’ve been reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit in preparation for a new project and was particularly inspired by the metaphor in this opening passage: “I walk into a large white room,” she writes. “It’s a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is lined with eight-foot-high mirrors. There’s a boom box in the corner. The floor is clean, virtually spotless if you don’t count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty.”
As a mother of three, leading Australian stylist Megan Morton couldn’t find inspired options to occupy her own children’s small, curious and creative minds. Sure, she was used to coordinating photo shoots and sourcing props and trouble-shooting endless last minute snafus. But when it came time to wrangle her littles in an engaging, art-inspired fashion,
A few days ago, I was perusing the work of Karen Barbe (an amazing textile designer / photographer based in Chile) and came across the sweetest story that paints a perfect portrait of growth, innocence and the art of discovering talents anew:
A few weeks ago, former Associate Editor of British ELLE Decoration and Top Design judge Amanda Talbot sent me a heartfelt note with a link to her new book, Rethink: The Way You Live. She thought it might resonate with me, as I’ve slowly morphed into this odd, thinky design blog where I’m asking a lot of questions, searching for answers and trying to figure out how design applies to my life now. I don’t know if I’ve properly put this into words here, but I’m in this weird space where I see so much value in design, but am also seeing a lot of the cost. Consumerism, materialism, keeping-up-with-the-Jones-ism. I mean, these concepts have been around for years, yes. But for some reason, I’m feeling the weight of it in a bigger way. Something in my heart is stirring…
Leslie David is a graphic designer and illustrator living the dream – a bustling career in Paris toting a portfolio packed with high profile clients from Colette to Chloe and Pucci to Miu Miu. Her range is extraordinary, designing patterns for fashion collections, covers for CD labels and art directing magazine issues. But perhaps her boldest career move to date? Dropping out of college.