Author: Catherine Hofmann
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A Model for Sustainable & Affordable Housing
Architectural and design magazines and blogs feature more sustainable and green buildings daily and many of these projects come from other countries, in rural areas, for good cause, and very inexpensively. I came across this Training Center in Sumatra designed by TYIN Tegnestue to bring cinnamon farmers together for more education, to battle unfair business practices, […]
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L’art Brut: Carlo Zinelli
Carlo Zinelli–schizophrenic Italian, war veteran, and artist. After stints the Spanish Civil War and WWII, Carlo’s aggression increased and ability to verbally communicate deteriorated. He called mental institutions home until his death. After 10 years in insolation, 2 sculptors and a psychiatrist added him to the art program where he created over 3,000 pieces with […]
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Wilders Grove in the Newspaper
A public art project I’ve been working on for McConnell Studios made it into the newspaper Sunday and you can barely see me in one of the photos…it’s a start! ha! The project is “Wilders Grove,” a 40 foot long undulating wall composed of recyclable materials to be installed at the first LEED Platinum waste […]
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Notes of Civility
A letter on civility from Anton Chekhov to his older brother, a drunk painter and writer, from Letters of Note. To my mind, civilized people ought to satisfy the following conditions: 1. They respect the individual and are therefore always indulgent, gentle, polite and compliant. They do not throw a tantrum over a hammer or a lost […]
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Breaking in Raw Selvage denim!
Fall 2011Spring 2013 If only I had a better camera… These are the Nash, my 12oz denim that I’ve beat up over the past 3 years–they are 2nd skin now! I have more posts (and images) about my love for denim (the Edmunds) and where I’ve taken them (the cabin trip, the canoe trip, and Puerto Rico) The Nash Fall 2012 […]
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Canoe Camping Trip! The Roanoke River Platform System
6 of us set out towards the North Carolina coast last Saturday with beef jerky, whiskey, sleeping bags, and miscellaneous supplies (I’m not going to list them like I did for Puerto Rico, but it was similar). We met Heber of Roanoke Outdoor Adventures (highly recommended) with the canoes, loaded our gear, and paddled out. The […]
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Carved Pencil Sculptures
Lionel Bawden creates fluid sculptures from hexagonal Staedtler pencils and epoxy. They look like polished desert stones or a reptilian skin. Transforming everyday materials into landscapes and ambiguous forms brings to mind Guy Laramée’s book carvings. Original Article: STAEDTLER PENCIL SCULPTURES BY LIONEL BAWDEN in Juxatpoz Magazine
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Thoughts on Passion and Creating
James Rhodes, a concert pianist, speaks on how creativity is “beaten into submission”, that we have allowed our daily tasks and the internet to dominate our lives. James asserts that we devote the extra time in our lives to doing something creative, whatever that may be. He goes on to describe his lifestyle as a concert pianist–it’s […]
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Vintage Cannes Film Festival Posters
The festival wrapped up last Saturday but I didn’t follow it this year. Instead, I gathered some vintage posters = great fonts, great colors, great sketches. Also, here is a quote from Kevin Levine about film festivals, specifically Sundance, but it might apply to Cannes, and I agree. If Will Ferrell or Brad Pitt – just […]
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be an enthusiast
“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 […]
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Coolest Outdoor Bathroom – Austin, TX
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 […]
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I have (had) a Tumblr
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/
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Bukowski’s Movitational: Move On, Regardless
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: Regardless “The nights you fight best are when all the weapons are […]
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Retna, Typology, and a New Language
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 […]
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the first draft
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 […]
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El Mac: Photorealistic Graffiti
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 […]
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Puerto Rico Pictures
Arecibo Somewhere inland, off the Ruta PanorámicaRight on the beach in San Juan. A lot of the buildings looked like this. The cemetery in Old San JuanRhea and I in Old San JuanStreet vendors machete’d the top of coconuts off and stuck a straw in it. Later we smashed them in the street to eat the […]
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Travel Map
I have been keeping a google map of all the places I have been as well as starring favorite places–which I need to catch up with–and thought I should share it with you. You can view the map here. As you can see, I’ve traveled quite a bit within the United States, mostly in the […]
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“When children have nothing to do now, they immediately switch on the TV, the computer, the phone or some kind of screen. The time they spend on these things has increased. But children need to have stand-and-stare time, time imagining and pursuing their own thinking processes or assimilating their experiences through play or just observing […]
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Puerto Rico Trip + Lists
for the next week: 1 backpack, 0 laptops What I packed: Clothes: straw hat, vans hat, rain jacket, underwear, socks, bikini, board shorts, cut off shorts, edmund jeans, belt, blue polo, button down, blue sweater, 4 v-necks, 3 cutoff t-shirts, running shorts and shirt, nikes (these or these would have been better), and vans Other: toothbrush […]
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to those interested: Norfolk Bike Share RFI
The City of Norfolk, VA is looking for RFI’s from industry providers and vendors about Public Bike Share systems, vendors, and operators. The RFI is below in its entirety. RFI4256-Bike Share (2)
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Art, Freedom, and The Kiss–A Tribute in Syria
“If you can not please everyone with your deeds and your art, please a few” Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is an Austrian painter and first president of the Vienna Secession ( an artists’ union), whose goal was to rid itself of classical oppression and motto was “To every age its art. To art its freedom”. The majority of his […]
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Knife in the Water (1962) movie stills
I recently watched my first Roman Polanski film, his debut, Knife in the Water. Polanski co-wrote and directed the 1962 film which takes places mainly on a boat featuring only 3 actors. A married couple pick up a young hitchhiker and invite him to spend the night aboard their boat. The film is tense and beautifully framed. The […]
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Graffiti: RYNGAR
The purging of bookmarks directed me to an ekosystem.org page for a graffiti artist called RYNGAR. I cannot find out anything about him and I cannot remember how I came across him in the first place. All I know is that the artist’s work is found primarily in France. The mechanized | industrialized cross sections of these […]
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New Denim! Kind of..
A pair of 14oz selvage denim has been sitting in my closet for over a year and a half due to a minor repair I needed to make. Although my heaviest, and best for winter, I haven’t noticed its absence due to my large rotation of denim. Of course, I decide to fix them now […]
Catherine R. Hofmann 