Graph Paper and Fractal Geometry
For the past 48 hours or so I’ve been obsessively making letterforms and what-have-you in my graph paper journal. I can’t seem to stop. I know it’s neurotic and a little bit crazy but it feels cathartic and at times like the only thing that’s keeping me sane. I think repetitive action is like prayer to me. Articulating and offering up something not quite understandable. My hands seem to do it better than my mouth. Maybe participation in creation and ordering makes me less destructive. Who knows. There’s something mesmorizing about the simultaneous existance of possibility and restriction in the graphs. One test on Fractal Geometry away from completing my online math course (what a nightmare) and I’m connecting the dots. Ordering chaos, infinite possibility held within boundaries, materiality and ongoing creation, the curve, the cantenary, the signature, the, the, the…
And so on.
Here’s to keeping the graph paper close so I don’t fall apart.
TREE HOUSES
Is…. anything cooler? I can’t think of very many things. Well, okay maybe I can, but I think we can all agree that no matter who you are, no matter how old, no matter where in the world you live, no matter what kind of interests you have, everyone, EVERY ONE, loves and wants a cool tree house.
It’s been a while since I’ve been on my regular blog/creative websites rounds and since I had a few minutes before work I thought I’d pop over to www.dwell.com to see what the good people of Dwell Magazine have uncovered from the wide wide world of dwelling design. Of course this is what greeted me warmly there on the main site page and sent me into hysterics. The accompanying article explains that this lovely little wooden piece of expert craftsmanship and design happens to be just a hop-skip-and-a-jump away in Brentwood, Los Angeles. You must read the article here but basically this tree house is a result of a 40 year old pine tree falling over in the owners back yard but continuing to live. Because of the owners deep respect for the tree and imaginative mind it was decided that a brilliantly designed tree house/office/guest house be erected atop the fallen tree as a means of honoring it. How poetic. Okay I rolled my eyes when I wrote “how poetic” but really it is incredibly cool and the tree house is just … well… wonderful.
Over the Rhine has been filling the rooms of our cozy little home for the past week or so. I’m so delighted that my room mate has discovered them on my ipod and plays them all day everyday. It’s reminding about some stuff. Like music and fall and who I intended to be way back when. This semester has been so full and so good. I’ll post what I’ve been working on these past weeks very soon.
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In other news, Tavish has moved to New York City. After spending a month in the Big ol’ Apple and returning to Smoggy ol’ L.A. he decided to head east for a while to pursue his dreams. It was a pretty sudden decision and when he realized it would mean that he’d have to drive his car and belongings back to Edmond, OK I said, “Um, well I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon…” and off we went. We left on a friday afternoon, covered six states, passed through vegas, the hoover dam, grand canyon, tons and tons of desert and silly old texas before coming to a wonderful 3 day stop in his home town. Then I flew back to L.A. sick, really tired, and with lots of work to do. But it was a pretty great adventure.
(via merlin)
I dunno why I hate so much the reblog when it’s just something I saw on my tumble feed. But this is pretty great.
Wow, I have just been really off my game with this thing. No posts in weeks and weeks and weeks. Apologies my dear tumblriends. (ew)
So anyway, to get back in the swing of things I guess I’ll post a bit of what I’ve been up to. The set of pictures above are from an Integrated Design II project in which we were to come up with purely typographic solutions to three of the fruits of the spirit and one 3D solution to one of them. This was my three dimensional solution for the word Patience ::: a puzzle box. After these pictures I made several modifications that included push keys and more intricate locking systems. Sweet.
Wait just a minute LAURA, we thought you were into the new antiquity, the resurgence of heritage pieces, classic clothing groomed carefully and not imposingly by the modern eye. Astute observation everyone, I’m so glad to know you’ve been paying attention! While these pieces from the new fall/winter collection by the Warriors of Radness (which I saw at www.selectism.com) resemble closely the fairly typical artsy-hipster-american-apparel-twenty-something-fixed-gear-riding-city-dwelling-guy-or-girl-in-the-deep-deep-extra-deep-v-neck-and-skinny-jeans-sitting-next-to-you, they retain a nostalgically classic bent and deliciously nautical flavor. (By the way: I have nothing against the aforementioned person. I myself wore a deep v and skinny jeans two days ago) Plus, if you don’t LOVE the clothes, you HAVE to love the name. Right?
Way back when, when I started my very first year of college back at good ol’ MBI in Chicago, I found immediate and wonderful friendship in someone that I had known throughout High School but had never yet considered an actual friend. Jocelyn. We had all of the same friends, we were around one another all of the time but it wasn’t until we landed on the same dorm floor that we found that we had much more in common than we thought. One of those things being this song. A simple bonus track on Pete Yorn’s Music for the Morning After album, but a song that we (to the chagrin of many of our friends) deemed multiple-repeat worthy, hours-worth-of-repeat worthy. Ridiculous and self-indulgent but we felt as if it had been written for us, our green eyes, and our new found friendship. Now this song is almost as nostalgic to me as this: Click Here. I know, I know. But something about the fall (and Coldplay) makes me undeniably nostalgic.
8Back to School for Almost the Last Time
With the exception (hopefully) of two years at a yet to be determined Grad. School, this is my final “Back to School” fall. Yay! Senior Year! Relieving and easy right? No way. I’m only two days into this final fall semester and I’m already swapped and discouraged in multiple multiple ways. I’m already a couple days behind in my online math class because of technical problems, I’ve got several potentially awesome projects/assignments already but am overwhelmed by the level of potential I see for each of them, we’re still trying to move our way into this new apartment and find ways to make it feel like home, got tons of reading to do, a new job, books and supplies to buy, people in the apartment complex to meet so that I’m not a hermit again this year, a huge and terribly important senior show to plan and create, and tons and tons of distance (and all that comes along with that) between myself and the people I love.
I’m trying to start this school year with courage, in all regards. And yet, I’ve been feeling pretty DIScouraged in a lot of ways. If you’re interested at all in what words mean you might find it interesting to note the definitions of the words courage and discourage. Look ‘em up!
In the midst of my momentary discouragement and my struggle back to courage, there is one song that is continuing to roll itself over and over in my head:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling down the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on
Glory glory hallelujah
Glory glory Hallelujah
Glory glory Hallelujah, our God is marching on.
I’ve seen him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded him an alter in the evening dews and damps
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on
Glory glory Hallelujah
Glory glory Hallelujah
Glory glory Hallelujah, our God is marching on.
Etc, etc.
I have a feeling that this will be the hardest and also the most rewarding year of my life (so far, academically, and creatively) ((I hope)).
If you care about building things and even if you don’t, please read this: Click Here Or the New York Times blog of which it is a part. I have been reading “Wooden Boats: In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard” by Michael Ruhlman and I really believe that a lot of the sentiments that are expressed in the aforementioned link are totally transferable to the art of building boats, furniture, or what have you. Wood is a mysterious and wonderful medium that I find difficult NOT to think about at any given moment of the day.
Disappearing
Well here I am.
On the other side of summer, a cool California breeze at my back and Justin Vernon reminding me gently about quiet and courage and my summer in Ohio and who I want to be and who I am and who I’ve been and about love and fear and truth.
It’s a reality I can acknowledge: I disappear. ((I have buried you, every place I’ve gone, you keep ending up, in my shaking hands)) The question is, do I disappear from myself or just from those on the other end of the long long line traced over mountains of the west, through valleys, along the curiously straight lines of cornfields and farmland acreage boundaries, winding around the lazy rivers of the midwest and the through the bright greens of the north midwest. I don’t mean to disappear. Once, several years ago I did. I needed to, and I knew it. Back then it hurt, it felt like loss. It was important to me to journey west as a means of journeying away from the parts of myself I wished to leave behind. I guess it was courage.
Now, years later, lessons learned, I no longer need to disappear, it’s just hard to allow my heart to exist equally in two places. Courage. I’m still learning courage. The courage not to disappear…?
I miss my wonderful and quiet new home in Ohio and time with my mom and dad.
Garance Dore (click here) is so wonderful with her insights, gorgeous photos and her even more beautiful occasional fashion illustrations. Ah… how elegant and mysterious.
Onward and Upward. Or something like that.
I can’t believe it. Here we are at the end of summer, or at least MY summer. Exactly 2 months ago (to the date) I boarded an east bound plane from my par-time home in Los Angeles to my real home in Chicago. A week later I headed south to Florida for my brothers wedding, then three days later back up north to pack up our real home in Chicago (Wheaton) and head east to our new home in Springfield, Ohio. And now tomorrow I will once again make the great journey west back to my part-time home in Los Angeles.
This summer, not without its trials and hardships, was possibly the best I’ve had since High School (that was an awfully long time ago). There was something almost unreasonably restful about this new house, nestled snuggly into the hill the forest drawn up around it like a blanket. Falling asleep every night to the evening sounds, crickets and bugs, waking to the craziest concoction of bird songs and calls and pecking. Time to do a final pack and head to the airport. I’ll miss this new home and my parents.
Oooooooh this just makes me SO mad. While learning about my bicycle options at a local bike shop the other day and discussing the pros and cons of fixed gear, street, or hybrid bikes with our friendly sales associate, I began to feel sick about the idea of spending such an enormous (for me) amount of money on something that I really only need to get me from point A to point B. So of course, as anyone who knows me would expect, I asked, “Well, can I build one myself? You know, out of wood?” My parents laughed and looked at one another knowingly, but we were all shocked when the sales associate replied, “Oh. Yes. Well of course that’s an option if you’re up for it. They build their own bikes out of bamboo and scrap wood in Africa. There are sites that will show you how. It’ll probably be more expensive though in the long run.” Interesting… well, more expensive is definitely NOT what I want but I was interested in this wooden bicycle idea so I figured I’d look it up just for fun. And then, not fifteen minutes into my search, I happened upon this: Click Here . A SIXTEEN year old high school student built the wooden bicycle (pictured above) COMPLETELY out of wood. COMPLETELY. COMPLETELY. COMPLETELY. Wooden joints, wooden gears, wooden chain, wooden wheels, wooden everything. For a school project. Ugh. As one might imagine, I hate that I didn’t do this first.
My hat’s off to you Marco Facciola. But I still kinda hate you. No offense.
Life: Documented
Please check out this article from the New York Times about our constantly documented and chronicled lives and trying to have moments and even spaces that are not posted or tagged on social networking sites, blogs, or twitters. Click HERE.
Of course I WOULD be posting this article, doing exactly what it decries but, I think this is an interesting and important thing to consider. What does it mean that a large majority of us feel the need to document and share even the most trivial and boring parts of our lives? Not that I’ll stop posting here or occasionally on my twitter, but it’s food for thought.
