I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be
Roald Dahl’s UNCLE OSWALD
Passion makes can make a good idea great.
Forty-nine 3/4″ thick steel plates curl in on themselves to form a public day-lit bathroom in the Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike trail, Austin, TX. Its design eliminated the need for artificial lights or ventilation. The steel was left untreated, rust has already formed on the plates.
Miro RIvera proves that functional, necessary outbuildings can also be beautiful and well designed.
thanks to Jacob B. for pointing this out!
I started this a long time ago to save images, music, and text that was hard to track on my laptop and invariably slowed it down. I refer to it as my inspiration board, or, The Board. As a warning, it is ~2% NSFW.
Here is the link: http://cathxrine.tumblr.com/
I have not read a lot of Bukowski mainly because I always remember an interview clip of Bukowski verbally and physically abusing his wife.
This motivated me a few days ago after a ran across it on a lit quote feed I follow:
“The nights you fight best are
when all the weapons are pointed at you,
when all the voices hurl their insults
while the dream is being strangled.
The nights you fight best are
when reason gets kicked in the gut,
when the chariots of gloom encircle you.
The nights you fight best are
when the laughter of fools fills the air,
when the kiss of death is mistaken for love.
The nights you fight best are
when the game is fixed,
when the crowd screams for your blood.
The nights you fight best are
on a night like this
as you chase a thousand dark rats from your brain,
as you rise up against the impossible,
as you become a brother to the tender sister of joy
and move on
regardless.”
LA-based artist Retna started as a street artist but blew up in 2010 when Jeffrey Deitch said his exhibition at New Image Art was “the most exciting exhibition..this year, anywhere”. He created his own language based on Old English, Asian calligraphy, Hewbrew, and Arabic. His work is stunning and upon closer inspection you see the symbols are not random–humans cannot be random–and I want to believe that there is a story behind his one-man language.
“I’ve been writing and I wanted to make this text that was influenced by the world and I wanted everyone to be able to relate to it. I was mixed [race], so I never really felt like I fit in, or I was either one or this or that, so I just started to say I was down with everybody and I wanted my work to reflect that. That was the idea I was after.”
I wish there was more large-scale street art around Raleigh.
This one is probably a collaboration with El Mac.
(Source: More Intelligent Life)
It is hard to make time to write, and even harder to start writing. I want the first draft to be the only draft, as if my word is scripture, my pen commanded by a higher being. These ridiculous expectations stem the flow from thoughts to paper and creates a truly jumbled and terrible waste of trees.
Don’t sweat it. Writing is work. Edit.
Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.
- Jane Smiley
El Mac is a graffiti and photorealistic artist based out of LA. He has done installations from Miami Art Basel to the Adobe HQ (above). I like the ripples/waves he uses for shading and contour, which can also be seen in his sketches (bottom). Interestingly, El Mac names an artist I featured here as a source of inspiration.
Retna, another LA-based artist, did the typography in the installations with the boy and the man with the glasses.
