Burgundy Street, Madrid.

Wood veneer pouches and how to.

spring fever

Altered books...

Great presentation concept by Cavalier Essentials.

I ♥ Maira Kalman

fonts

Love these new fonts from Tart: Bookeyed Jack and his stylish cousin Suzanne.
Carefully hand-drawn with an old school pointed pen in walnut ink.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Nelson Mandela

the golden rule

“This poster is a father and son col­lab­o­ra­tion. All ele­ments are hand drawn by Koen (age 6) with a Sharpie marker at the din­ing room table, then arranged dig­i­tally in our stu­dio. The type is the “Golden Rule” as penned in the hon­est hand of a child. Maybe what we learned in kinder­garten is most impor­tant after all.” Avail­able from Studio On Fire (14 x 20 let­ter­press poster, $30).

calligraphy collaboration

Beau­ti­ful valen­tines from Hello Handmade Paperie – a col­lab­o­ra­tion between artist Shanna Murray and cal­lig­ra­pher Betsy Dunlap. Each valen­tine is printed with Shanna’s lovely rib­boned lau­rel illus­tra­tion on the front and a cus­tomized note penned by Betsy on the inside.

Roaming Wishlist '11

1. Hotel Surazo, Matanzas, Chile.

2. Los Roques, Venezuela. An archipelago national park in the Caribbean.

3. Hapuku Lodge & Tree Houses, Kaikoura, New Zealand.

Freedom. Freedom to what?

"To what avail the plough or sail, or love, or life -- if freedom fail? Freedom. Freedom to what? Escape, run, wonder turning your back on a cowed society that stutters, staggers, and satnates every man for himself and fuck you Jack I've got mine? To be truly challenging, a voyage, like life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea --"cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to the sea men, and to the wonderers of the world who cannot or will not fit in. Little has been said or written about the ways a man may blast himself free. Why? I don't know, unless the answer lies in our diseased values....Men are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security", and in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine--and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man really need --- really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in ---and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all --- in the material sense. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they like caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Dedication to the sea is the symbol of migration and movement and wondering. It is the barbaric place and it stands opposed to society and it is a constant symbol in all of literature, too. As Thomas Wolfe said, "It is the state of barbaric disorder out of which civilization has emerged and into which it is liable to return."

----Stearling Hayden, Wonderer, 1964

"Sordid... but at least it's life"