If one or two of something is fun, a dozen is even more fun.
If a dozen is more fun, thousands of dozens is just downright CRAZY COOL!!!
And when that object turns out to be coffee stirrer sticks… even better!!!

Found this online and just had to share…

Most people don’t think twice about their coffee stirrers once they’ve fulfilled their mixing
duties, but artist Jonathan Brilliant has found another purpose for the common wooden
sticks. The Raleigh, North Carolina-based artist has constructed numerous spatial art
installations over the years that incorporate the coffee stir sticks, perhaps the most eye-
fetching of them being “The Sumter Piece.”

The site-specific structure, installed in 2007 in Sumter, South Carolina, included 60,000
wooden stirring sticks expertly woven together. Brilliant produced a meticulously crafted
sculptural piece that expanded across two floors. It reached over a second floor balcony
and suspended from the ceiling of the first floor, artistically wrapping around an
illuminated chandelier.

The abstract creation took 14 days to weave together and install on site. It’s hard to believe,
but there were no additional tools on hand. Brilliant says, “No adhesive was used and the
entire structure holds itself in place because of the tensile strength of 7” rounded end
wooden coffee stirrers. After nearly six months the piece eventually separated and the
materials were donated to a local school.”

C’mon now… No armature. No super-structure. NO GLUE!!! Really?!
And wouldn’t have loved to see it when it “eventually separated” and came crashing down?!
Now THAT’s the video I want to see!!!

And let me just say… Did anyone else see “America’s Got Talent” when “The Kinetic King”
made these incredible contraptions out of tongue depressors?! he interwove them kinda
like this… but when he knocked one stick, it started a huge chain reaction where every
stick flipped out and fell down like racing dominoes. Click here for the video.

Imagine what would happen if these two stick artists collaborated?!!!
Even crazier. Even cooler!!! But I digress…

Okay, one more thing… one more tangent…
Doesn’t this somehow have future Summer Camp project written all over it?! I’m just sayin’…

For more about the artist Jonathan Brilliant, his incredible installations and projects,
click here for his website. He’s crazy… crazy cool!!!

It’s February… and it finally SNOWED in Chicago!!!
Sure, we’ve had flurries & dustings of snow. But today I woke up to a couple
inches of snow. Which looked especially fun on this great “bike-frame-fence”
I found along my way home from Step Class.

Generally I’m not a fan of graffiti.
I think if you feel like you need to paint something, find a canvas, a board, a piece of paper.
Don’t deface the side of a building or public space that other people enjoy as it is.

But then sometimes you’ll see something really cool & unexpected. Not just some random
spray paint on the side of the wall. Not just some crazy block letters tagging a building.
But actually some incredible graphics. Beautiful designs in unexpected places. In this
case, it was on Grand Avenue beneath Lake Shore Drive near Chicago’s Navy Pier.
Propaganda posters slapped onto the concrete walls along Grand Avenue. Love ’em!
Sadly, like most graffiti… it might not last for long…

So I realize that these images are all part of a marketing campaign. Shameless propaganda.
Yet I LOVE the bold graphic design, the stark black & white contrast, and the dynamic
flourishes, patterns & crisp sense of whimsy. And while the above “segments” are great,
the entire posters were even better. So here they are as they were designed…
although some of them are showing signs of deterioration already.

But then sometimes, the reality of the structure gets in the way of a great art installation.
Couldn’t quite move around the pipes, so they had to be where they were… right in front!!!

Yes, each poster is pretty great.
But the entire “under bridge wall” plastered with these posters was quite a dramatic sight.
So similar in style, yet each one of them a beauty on its own!

Oh, the things you’ll see while playing on your bike…

With a freezing rain today in Chicago, looks like my sunrise bike rides may be
on hold for a bit!? But after watching this video, suddenly I’m feeling like my own
morning rides are a bit anti-climactic. This is a beautiful video with some
incredibly crazy riding… that I won’t be trying any time soon!!!

Maybe it’s just me… but wouldn’t you think there must have been a smooth &
obstacle-free paved road around there somewhere?!

Here’s a link to the video… click on “Danny MacAskill.”

So watch the video. It’s beautifully filmed & edited with a great soundtrack.
Love his sense of adventure & whimsy. And I hope he has a good helmet…
or even better, he should be shopping around for a good helmet sponsor!!!

What a difference a new perspective can make?! Not the normal chandelier any more!

Today’s his day… A day to remember… Martin Luther King Jr.

It was a beautiful day back in November 2012 when I had the chance to see the inspiring
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial for the first time in Washington, DC.

So thoughtful as he looks out over the Potomac River towards the Jefferson Memorial.
You enter through the large boulder rocks to see that one “slice” as been taken out and
“slid” forward. It isn’t until you walk around that slid rock slice that you see Martin Luther
King Jr. and many of his inspiring quotes chiseled permanently into the stonework.

Here’s a fun game of color-matching. It’s addictive. Be careful.
Just click your cursor on the small circle on the big color ring. Then move it around
to “match” the center color before time runs out. You get a lot of chances…
matching hue, saturation, complementary, analagous, triadic and tetradic.
Who knew there could be so many colors to match?! Have fun!!!

Click here for the game… COLOR.

The beginning of a New Year is always a time for reflection.
A time to consider new directions. New paths. New adventures.
To figure out where you want to be & what you really want to do.
Here’s an inspirational video that might make you consider some alternatives to
your path. Enjoy… and then tell me what YOU would do if money didn’t matter!

Click here for the video… What If Money Didn’t Matter?

I found this online and had to share…
Looks like entire cities are getting more and more excited about DIY Christmas trees.
Last year Kaunas in Lithuania had one made from 32.000 recycled bottles and this year
a Belgian town called Hasselt put up a 30-foot high Christmas tree, made from 5,000
porcelain plates. The plates were brought by around 3,000 residents of the town,
which symbolically titles itself as the Capital of Taste.

The idea was presented and implemented by Inge Vanluyd and Stefan Vanbergen from
Belgian company mooz. “At home we all have odd plates and cups which just don’t go
with anything and as a consequence never find their way out of the cupboard. We
noticed that friends and family also had ‘spare’ plates hanging around the house. This
was enough to get us thinking about a creative destination for these everyday objects,”
explain the creators.
Kinda want to make one of my own now…