{art + innovation} #inspiration
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Why Entrepreneurs Fail And Most Startups Are DOA
March 17, 2012
I Dream of Airstreams
March 2, 2012
Drool. That’s what I did as I sauntered through each vintage Airstream trailer interior.
It was the last day of the 11-day 2012 Modernism Week in Palm Springs, CA. Driving to this desert oasis goes something like this: rock, sand, road, rock, sand, road, windmill, windmill, windmill, fabulous city! If Las Vegas is the slutty vixen, Palm Springs is her mod artist sister.
I have just lusted over having my own bright aluminum Jelly Belly for years. It’s an irrational love for the look, feel, and overall coolness. I finally had a chance to walk through interiors from owners and to hear their stories. No, this isn’t the kind of rehab where many rock stars end up. This kind of rehab yearns for total transformation, yet preservation. Give me vintage or give me nothing.
One couple took their baby across 21 states in 3 months. Another woman enthusiastically showed us her icebox, not an electrical refrigerator. The belle of the ball was the Deco Liner where its drivable from the top exterior and is completely designed by the owners.
The interiors varied from a surrounding warm cherry wood to an ultramodern modern, loft-like interior. I had never seen an open trailer, which completely collapses down or a modified 2002T Bimmer used to tow a trailer.
I fell in love with the petite, 18-foot Bambi model. I wouldn’t actually tow my future Bambi. I can’t even parallel park well so towing anything would be a certain disaster.
I want to park my Bambi in my backyard and convert it into a mini getaway space. A literary writing room? Relaxing Zen sanctuary? Perhaps a chill lounge? How about an artist studio?
Dream. Lust. Repeat.
G is for Gorgeously Gorey: Rocking the Edwardian Ball
February 22, 2012
When was the last time you dressed up for a full fledged ball resplendent from floor length Edwardian gowns up to ceiling-brushing stilt walkers? Fantastically fun. Wide-eyed wonder. What writer/illustrator inspires throngs of fans to party across San Francisco and Los Angeles every year? Answer: The Edwardian Ball celebrating Edward Gorey (1925-2000), an erudite American artist wrought with paradox and humorous noir.
I first stumbled upon Gorey’s books as a young lass in an actual bookstore. Mr. Gorey’s sensibilities immediately stood out as different and hilarious. Gorey’s life and work soaks in irony. He served as an Army man and graduated Harvard. Although kids were often topics for his dark writings, he died childless and never confirmed his sexual orientation. For a creative who loved word games and read prodigiously, some of Gorey ‘s books are wordless. Gorey’s introduction for the PBS show Mystery! propelled his art to global recognition, yet he only attended one semester of art school in Chicago’s School of the Art Institute.
Even his name pelts puns. Edward often set his pieces in Edwardian times (1901-1910) despite his American roots. Gorey frequently focused on gory topics like untimely deaths and macabre observations. Although his prolific work conjures a niche following, he’s not widely known as J.K. Rowling’s ubiquitous Harry Potter. He rarely gave interviews, yet Floating Worlds is a 256-page book about Gorey’s prodigious letter writing to writer Peter Neumeyer.
The Edwardian Ball carries the same ironic undertone in its 12th year. This ball proved completely opposite to the conventional conceptions of a political, charity, or Disney sweet Cinderella ball.
Los Angeles held its annual ball at the marvelous Belasco Theater, established around 1900, not at a plastic fairy castle or scorching Burning Man desert. The $45 general admission is accessible unlike some over-the-top galas. Attendees dressed in magnificent pieces from the Edwardian, steampunk, or Gothic period. I’ve never seen so many corsets, hats, capes, umbrellas, and feathers in one original mix. The costumes were tastefully provocative, not sleazy tawdry. People took great attention to the detail, quality, and overall voilà of their amazing outfit. When a woman dons an intricate Spanish Armada-like ship as her hat, you know that these people are hardcore. Check out San Francisco’s professional shots.
Most importantly, the hundreds of people behaved like genteel ladies and gentlemen throughout the spacious two levels and 3 bars. Absinthe cocktails flowed freely as well-dressed sippers mingled in neat, fast lines. Forget the Renaissance Faire raunchy.
The main stage exhibited more variety than a Las Vegas buffet. We marveled at acts spanning ballet dancers, aerial dancers, belly dancers, corset fashion show, live bands, and a magician to name a few.
The toy gun toting cowgirl confidently shot balloons grasped by a perceptibly gay “Indian” who contorted his chiseled body more than a Rubik’s cube.
The renovated Belasco rocked with a mix of funky traditional bands and sleek club music. The lobby became the stage for a guy rocking out on a guitar made from shovel. Yes, a full-sized shovel strung out and attached to an amplifier. The vendor’s bazaar blended right into the crowd along the upper balcony. Period wares included leather masks, Edwardian clothes, jewelry, Gothic art, hats, gloves, and copper smith watches. The photo vendor offered both Polaroid prints and digital photos.
Giant reproductions of Gorey’s illustrations sprinkled the dark theater like delightful surprises. The “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs” signage was strategically placed on the top of stairs, referencing Gorey’s famous The Gashlycrumb Tinies.
‘Twas immensely fun dressing up and anticipating a proper ball. The entire event celebrated wonder, fantasy, craftsmanship, and barely-held-together Edwardian society rules. The Edwardian Ball is deliciously different, just like the artist who inspired the international community. A is for Addicted!
Geeking Out @ NYC’s Material Library
February 7, 2012
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Libraries = books, right? The material library obliterates that equation. Imagine rows of cutting edge plastic, glass, ceramics, metals, etc. for you to touch and brainstorm! It’s a product designer’s dream for inspiration and innovation.
I geeked out when I had a chance to access the Material Connexion in New York City, the only North American location. The library space from the lobby, meeting room, and material room are delightfully laid out, indexed, and coordinated.
Visitors can spend their time perusing over hundreds of “material swatches” and then contact the material manufacturer directly for more samples or information. The Material Connexion also has an online database where users can search on the ~6,500 materials in their collection based on multiple criteria like heat resistance or renewability.
The biggest material trend seen at the library is green material, anything sustainable. Hearing how a replacement for landfill-clogging Styrofoam had been created sparked excitement and hope . Two engineering and product design guys baked a mixture of corn and fungus together to form tough, biodegradable foam. They grow their innovation on an Upstate New York farm, which has packaging impacts around the world. Check out Ecovative Design’s EcoCradle foam.
I next picked up what appeared to be a rock-like square. Lo and behold when that block stands up to the light! The material is actually translucent with streaks of light peering throughout, revealing my hand underneath. Imagine if Milan museums or Nagoya nightclubs use this material for chic designs…
A rotating group of cross-industry professionals vote on accepting approximately 50 materials into Material Connexion a month. The application possibilities are like a kid in a candy store. I was stoked to pick up a polymer that retains smell for applications like a rose-smelling trash container.
Aside from NYC, I still envied all those people in Bangkok, Beijing, Cologne, Daegu, Istanbul, Milan and Seoul where other Material Connexion libraries operate.
Many traditional book libraries face budget cuts around the country given the digital reality. Imagine if designers, teachers and parents took their budding inventors to local material libraries where kids could play and immerse themselves around innovative materials. What would we build next?
How are those Legos and Lincoln Logs looking?
I felt fired up hearing this talk from Rick Warren @ the inaugural TEDx Orange Coast in May 2011.
I can’t wait to attend TEDx 2012!
“8 Nations of Innovation” @ TEDx Orange Coast
January 28, 2012
Dispatch From Sundance Film Festival 2012
January 23, 2012
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The Sundance Film Festival exhilarates! Imagine 200 independent films premiering in 3 cities over 10 days to 50,000 global visitors corralled by 1,600 volunteers. Only around 2% of movies submitted get selected to premiere at this 34 year-old mega-uber American film festival.
It’s not just a two-hour adrenaline rush for one movie.
It’s days of an addicting thrill made of hunting, hoping, browser refreshing, heart-wrenching excitement.
Your preconceptions, sensibilities, logic, and general status quo just expands like one of those super absorbent reptile toys that expands to 500% of its size when submerged in water. You know the ones.
Attending Sundance as an Out-of-State Common Mortal makes the coveted access even more precious. Keep in mind that viewing advantages go to actual filmmakers, the idle rich, large corporations, or Utah residents. From the planning, chasing, viewing, commiserating, and reminiscing about the whirlwind weekend pumps up my blood in the 30-degree January temperatures.
The 2012 individual tickets for the 9 Park City theaters sold out quickly this year. Shelling out thousands of dollars for a package of tickets would be too easy. No, it’s the hunt and chase set against the crazy game of persistence and luck that turns this fest into a riveting adventure.
There’s a science and a divine intervention to scoring tickets and timing the wait list strategy. The science comes from signing up for your assigned purchasing slot if you’re going the individual ticket route. The divine intervention comes when you receive donated tickets as the last wait list cut off like we did this year for I am Not a Hipster. The winning eBay bid of $305 for Bones Brigade proved just a tad out of my ballpark. There could be other mini miracles like buying tickets from strangers at their $15 face value when you’re about to stand in line for the 2-hour wait list queue like in 2011 in Salt Lake City.
There’s a mountain of viewing options at the fest. It can be a full working vacation to sample from the U.S. Dramatic, U.S. Documentary, World Cinema, ultra low budget (NEXT), midnight showings, short movies, and performances. Throw in the pre-parties, after parties, concerts, podcasts, and awards, too.
Stacy Peralta’s skate boarding documentary, Bones Brigade, proved to be my favorite movie out of the 4 seen during this year’s opening weekend. The finely edited flick shows how a core of 6 “boy scout” skaters invent and sustain an entire industry for thousands of people, while maintaining their integrity and down-to-earth realness. Hearing how Rodney Mullen compares competitive skating to a Kafka short story or drawing parallels to Beethoven’s isolating deafness makes Mullen my new inspirational genius.
Listening to the director/actor Q&A session after the movie is my favorite part. The audience questions are usually intelligent. The answers feel genuine, insightful and real.
Everyone at the festival loves talking about the festival. Ask any one of the practitioners, bloggers, fans, festival groupies, volunteers, hotel staff, barista, or drivers. Most people can share their Sundance experience for 2-10 minutes and sound like the most fascinating person in the room because each story is different. It’s easy to see why most of the volunteers return yearly like the one woman who told me that 2012 is her 15th year.
I will always remember Ann Musso’s L Train within the Shorts Program III as an amazing 11-minute drama without any dialog. Actress, Khadijah Davis, expressed everything from her eyes, facial expressions, and body language. It’s no wonder how this short was selected from 7,675 other submissions. It’s the story of an African-American student’s misery through her daily long, freezing commute. Her poor-me perspective gets blown away as she performs an act of pure altruism for another fellow commuter. The producer revealed during the Q&A how he found the actress on Craigslist.
My other favorite aspect is seeing a movie in mass distribution and realizing, “Hey, I saw that at Sundance first!” Today’s “classics” like Reservoir Dogs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Napoleon Dynamite premiered at Sundance first.
Following and posting to the Sundance Institute’s Instagram stream proved quite fun this year.
Robert Redford’s one vision spawns a vast ecosystem of artists, businesses, fans, ideas, and innovation. It’s literally a giant cycle of goodness. The small filmmakers get their big break, studios pick up emerging gems, businesses boom, fans bond, and creativity keeps expanding. The Sundance empire comprises of the Sundance Institute, television channel, theater, catalog, and English version, Sundance London.
This year’s theme is Look Again. My theme for 2013 is Go Again & Stay Longer.
Freehand Life 