living

real life is messy

Periodically we like to feature the messy workspaces of artists as a reminder that being creative often means making a mess…We see it as an antidote to the shelter-magazine vision of a nice neat life that has infiltrated our heads over the years.

To take the idea a step further, we thought it would be fun to run a picture of Sally’s hacked kitchen as it was photographed for just one such magazine (note the artfully arranged array of photogenic foods) alongside an i-Phone photo Sally took one day when all-hell-was-breaking-lose in that same kitchen… and she couldn’t keep up with all the things she had to do, not to mention close the cabinet door, or break up an Amazon box to take to the recycling bin or even pick up a paper off the floor.

A lot of that stuff on the counter are objects waiting to be photographed and half-done projects for ‘the improvised life’, amidst bills and lists and…

The truth of that kitchen is that it waxes and wanes… gets messy then neat…out-of-control then serene and collected, and back again. Real life and making and doing is a wild business: work….in….progress….

Related post: On Things “Not Looking Good While You’re Working on Them”

What Unkempt or Messy or Shabby Can Mean

Kitchen Cabinets as Furniture

M.F.K. Fisher’s “Mystic Materialism of a Hungry Woman”

Fling and Be Flung

d-i-y pizza oven

pizza-oven

Adam Kuban of Serious Eats’ Slice Blog has a compelling series about people who have built their own pizza ovens. His interview with Mark Wilkie, who created this beauty is in the backyard of his Brooklyn rental, comes complete with photos and drawings of the process. Wilkie found lots of practical resources at Forno Bravo, a California based pizza oven maker that offers free plans for building “Pompeii” brick pizza oven as well as forums where d-i-y oven builders can exchange info.

It seems the Forno Bravo can fashion all or part of an oven if you’re into designing your own. Their “Photos” section has inspiring photos of wood-fired ovens from all over the world, read more…

a mantle as furniture (no hearth)

sallys-mantle-394-px

Ellen Silverman

Many years ago, I bought an amazing yellow mantle, salvaged from an old house in Maine, to surround the fireplace in an apartment I thought I’d live in forever.   Then things changed (life’s operating principle) and I had to leave that beautiful space, and make a new home amidst the the harsh realities of the New York real estate market. My new apartment had no fireplace. Still, I thought: Why not have a mantle without any notion of a fireplace at all?

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