The Good Envelope Party

Photo from The Good Envelope Party.

The Good Envelope Party is a group of woman from the Silver Lake area, who get together once a month to make recycled envelopes over a nice glass of wine and a chat. It’s a flurry of folding, gluing and fun! The envelopes, sold in sets of 10, are made from reused magazine and book pages. The imagery on each envelope is completely unique, ranging from the beautiful, to quite surreal, to very humorous!

The brilliant thing is that the proceeds are directly donated to non-profit organizations, underfunded schools, and local families struggling to fulfill their basic needs. And The Good Envelope Party are very proud and excited to have just made their first donation!

Roadkill jewellery

Nugent, with a ball of 30,000 porcupine needles. Photo via Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press

I just came across this article on treehugger.com about Amy Nugent, a jeweler and artist based in Vancouver, who uses roadkill to create her jewelery. Amazing!

Discovering Susan Sontag

Stills taken from Susan Sontag & Phillip Johnson

I was just doing some slightly haphazard searching online, inspired by listening to a bit of the DnA (Design & Architecture) program on NPR in the car the other day. Through various links I came across a BBC clip of Susan Sontag reporting on the then new Seagram Building in NY. “The elevator swished up like a gigolo’s hand on a silk stocking….” What an amazing description!

Cocca/Iron Arm Chair

Photos from cocca.

I love this Iron Arm Chair 厳島東京タワー　夜. Wish I could buy it. Wished I’d seen it before we left Japan. Sigh. It’s from this little shop called Cocca in Daikanyama, Tokyo. Cocca sells amazing limited edition fabrics and related products. I used a fabric by Spoken Words Project for a cushion I made. They’d designed a whole collection of fabrics based on the polka dot. Really lovely work.

Go Green Expo

01.19.09
Go Green Expo to debut in L.A., LA Times Blog, January 19, 2009

Reuse this. Recycle that. We’ve all heard the message that going green is good. This weekend, consumers who want to put their money where that message is can do a little learning — and a lot of buying — at the Go Green Expo, a trade show and “green-living” showcase that will make its L.A. debut this weekend. Everything from reusable dry cleaning bags to repurposed billboard vinyl to electric transportation will be on display, as will numerous products that aren’t so much green as merely riding the green bandwagon. So, buyers: beware.

More than 200 exhibitors will be strutting their stuff at the three-day event co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and Perf Go Green, a marketer and distributor of biodegradable plastics. Divided into two parts — a business-to-business expo for business owners on Friday and a for-the-public expo Saturday and Sunday — the event will also feature various “green” speakers. Most notable is Ed Begley Jr., who will give a free-to-the-public talk Friday afternoon. His speech will be followed by a screening of the oil-industry documentary, “Fuel,” and a panel discussion about clean energy with the documentary’s director, Josh Tickell, along with Hollywood stars Peter Fonda and Mariel Hemingway.

The Go Green Expo was itself inspired by a movie: Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” The eco-doc had its intended effect on Bradford Rand, the trade show and job-fair creator who founded and runs the Go Green Expo. “There wasn’t a trade show that helps people learn about all the different eco-friendly products and services out there,” said Rand, who’s putting the eco message into practice at this weekend’s expo. The tickets are paperless, the garbage bags are made from biodegradable plastic and the show’s signs are all printed on recycled paper.

What: Go Green Expo

When: Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday ,10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Where: Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles

Cost: Adults, $10; seniors age 65+ and children under the age of 12, free

Info: www.GoGreenExpo.com

Yesterday

Working on a pattern made from edges of collected film processing envelopes.

Music box

Photo from kid-o

I am in love with this musical box! You can make your own music by punching holes in the paper strips.

I remember seeing one of these for the first time a few years ago being played by Toshio Iwai at one of his talks. I was blown away by it’s simplicity. So beautiful. I want one!

You can see how Toshi Iwai’s Tenori-on directly relates to it.

I re-discovered the little music box at a great shop called Kid-O in New York (recommended to me by my flickr buddie, Hikaru). They have a brilliantly selected collection of products for children which I often find myself daydreaming over!

Morning!

Usual morning; made breakfast, made a lunch box, got us all dressed and out of the house, did the school run, had my coffee, now at last it’s 9:30 and I’m sitting at my desk.

Too many things in my head. Deep breath. One at a time.

Before I know it at 2:30 ‘my’ day will be over and I’ll go through the same routine again, in reverse, without the coffee and replacing the ‘sitting at my desk’ with food-shopping, hoovering, washing or some other domestic obligation.

I have realised I’m not some ‘wonder mum’, as some Mums appear to be. I struggle with this balance of being creative and productive and wanting to be there for my family, everyday.

This is my space … to think.

My head is like a little machine, churning around this tangle of ideas that rarely get to see the light of day. I’m starting this blog to bounce some of these ideas around, to motivate myself, to encourage me to process my ideas more thoroughly and methodically. And most importantly, to give my ideas a life. I aim to share things that fascinate and inspire me, as well as little research projects and thought processes of mine that feed into the rest of my work.

Meanwhile this will be a space that will keep anyone who’s interested updated on what I’m doing.