kickstarter

At A Fair to Remember on Sunday, I met Laura of Yes & Yes Designs who makes the delightful jewelry shown above out of a genius repurposed material-- old books! Laura was delightful to chat with and shared her Kickstarter with me. Check it out, you can get some sweet jewelry and support a local artisan.

Not into jewelry? Food more your thing?

My friend Russell in Richmond is also doing a Kickstarter for his farm, Ringer Farms. Ringer Farms grows local food for local chefs, food I enjoyed dining on in many of my favorite Richmond restaurants. They recycle beer grains from a local brewery into mulch for their soil and need help purchasing new equipment to keep up with demand and the changing weather patterns they are dealing with. Support Ringer Farms here.

rva street art festival

[Mike Broth from the RVA Street Fest Tumblr]

The #WhenInRVA Tumblr got me all nostalgic tonight. People often ask if the transition to the Bay Area was tough, and it was, but not in the way most expect. Richmond, VA is a great town with a lot going on. Tonight I'd like to share an awesome event in RVA that is officially over but lives on- the RVA Street Art Festival. If you are near Richmond, time for a visit.

[Some of the participating artist from the RVA Street Fest Tumblr]

tumblights 4/22

Happy Earth Day! I had a great time at A Fair to Remember, coming up again May 6. For tonight, I'm being as lazy as possible. In case that is also your plan, enjoy!


Automated drawings via designboom
Planning for noise, traffic and pollution. 3D renderings of impact via Fast Co Exist
Broken wax casts lead to new forms of jewelry and decorative art via Design Milk
Captivating double exposure photographs by Jon Duenas via The Fox Is Black

affordable art festival

[Peter Bastaja's Symphonic No.1]

I'm sitting in my kitchen/dining area looking at too many blank walls and wishing I could make it to New York's Annual Affordable Art Festival. Partner-in-Crime is in NYC right now, maybe he'll bring me back something to liven this place up. In its eleventh year, the Affordable Art Festival also runs in Los Angeles and Seattle, but somehow San Francisco is not on the list.

Original art should be more accessible, and the issue often isn't cost; there are plenty of young and undiscovered artists who sell their work at (relatively) affordable rates. (And let's remember the art should be expensive enough to pay a decent living to the artist!) The issue often is the difficulty of connecting artists and art buyers in non-intimidating ways. Seems like the Affordable Art Festivals are doing just that.

a fair to remember

Today is a busy day of errands, running around to get supplies ready for Sunday's A Fair to Remember. It's my first show since the holidays and I'm excited to be revamping my craft fair display. I have a lot to do to get ready, so be sure to come visit me on Sunday in the area of 225 Columbus (right near City Lights Books!) from noon to 5pm.

arsenal of inclusion

[The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion, illustration by Lesser Gonzales]

Now that I've started writing about 99% Invisible podcasts, I may just never stop. This week's podcast featured David D'Oca of Interboro Design and their project The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion. Roman Mars focused on the exclusion side but I found myself wondering about the inclusion side. Would it be all mixed use development, walkable communities and farmers markets? What would accidentally inclusive design look like? I supposed that it looks like, well, like benches. The kind you can sit on with a friend, without an awkward 'arm rest' dividing the space between you. Or making it impossible to catch a snooze in the sun. Inclusion is grass that you can walk on. Public buildings whose entry ways still have helpful signs, places to sit and no guards. Mostly accidentally inclusive places are places that haven't tried to exclude anyone yet.


In fact, most of The Arsenal website talks about exclusion. It's valid. The exclusive arsenal tends to be a lot sneakier. It is full of things, like the one way streets discussed in the 99% Invisible podcast, that seem like decisions based on how much room there is or in managing traffic flow, but really are about managing who can access the space. 


That said, one inclusive tool that I hadn't heard of before is the the eruv, a Jewish symbolic boundary formed by wire that expands the 'home' and therefore expands the area that the observant can travel on the Sabbath. "The eruv is in the Arsenal of Inclusion because it allows practicing Jews who might otherwise be required to segregate themselves to enjoy the benefits of living within a larger urban area while satisfying the traditional requirements of religious property law" (From Esquire's article on The Arsenal.) This increases the ability a community of people to enjoy the space, while having virtually no effect on others living the same area. Many of the tools of inclusion are also similarly intentional, often part of government regulation or other activist intervention. 


Listen to the podcast here. Check out The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion here. Get a quick peek at the Arsenal via Esquire here. 

tumblights 4/8

Happy Passover and Happy Easter! I hope all of you are with people you love this weekend. I have a rare Sunday off today so am cooking away this morning for two brunches this afternoon. I'm hoping my three-step brownies get done in time!

Collaborative Installation- The Obliteration Room (via Design Milk)


Packaging design with strong values messaging (via MocoLoco)


Photography: wisteria blooms Kawachi Fuji Gardens in Kitakyushu, Japan. (via Honestly WTF)


Love the bits of sparkle to random streetscapes (via  Inhabitat)


Installation art in progress, drawn with just the artist's hands (via Inhabitat)