kitty | orchid

honey in hong kong

 

occupy | midsummer

i like this latest yerba buena center for the arts mailing cover (bigger). 

looking at the scandinavians' midsummer blog posts makes me long.

camilla's

elisabeth's

anna emilia's

emma's

cousin lotta's

försenad glad midsommar!
 

the pink man window watching

added a truck to the old trucks in alameda set.

great ny times paul fusco presentation, found through all the mountains—always great images/links there.

tall pear

sometimes i have to buy pears for their looks. i don't mind eating them, but i can't say i have ever bought a pear because i craved its taste. although, a baked pear with chocolate sauce and whipped cream....mmm

here is a mesmerizing short video of talented ceramicist karin eriksson throwing a vase. my friend liz and i visited karin and her shop/studio last summer, so i know just where this magic is happening.

new kicks

these sneakers are surprisingly not comfortable. so hard to find comfy shoes. 

andrew bird: sifters

low: home

the national: brainy

olaf hajek illustration 

colors!

the blonde woman drawings. really nice.
long time girl gone by Long Time Girl Gone By

From OFG is back

mistubako, a From OFG contributor, keeps taking dreamy bee photos like the above: beehives in the riverside kitakami

 

finally putting From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens back up online (on sale!) i put the books in storage while i moved last year, and i recently retrieved a box of them.

in addition to mistubako's photos, below are some more links to recent work by From OFG contributors—such a talented bunch.

heather smith jones recently updated her letterpress shop, blue sparrow press.

katrina rodabaugh won a lotta jansdotter fabric contest with her sweet soft mobile.

mati rose mcdonough's Daring Adventures in Paint book is coming out very soon!

anna emilia laitinen's peaceful scenes grace an array publications.

jen hewett delves deeper into textile art.

i could go on about all of the contributors. but you can look them up yourselves in the links on the book's homepage.

farm bill time

americans, if you care about any of the following—small farmers, sustainable farming, food stamps/food accessibility, safe food, treatment of farm animals, it's time to contact your senators about the farm bill. while the current bill mostly sucks, there is still time to get some meaningful amendments added to it. the farm bill lasts five years and affects all of us (we all eat!) and affects animals, land, and water.

two easy ways to contact your representatives:

1. through food & water watch (their letter focuses on two amendments related to small farmers and non-GE food)

2. through organic consumers association (their letter focuses on reversing the food stamp cut)

for more farm bill info, read this open letter from food movement leaders and/or watch a very short video.

for more detailed info, check out this page of food & water watch's site, or check out the book food fight explains the farm bill in greater detail. 

california coast

on the way to strawberry picking saturday

heima

 

i watched heima last week. it documents sigur ros' series of free concerts they played in iceland. of course beautiful scenery and music cuts through the film. i found myself tearing up right from the start watching an old man walking with two children to a performance. in small villages, pretty much all the inhabitants seem to have attended the shows, if not for the music, for the gathering with each other. sweet. 

i saw sigur ros play in 2006 at the beautiful marin county civic center—i think it must have been the tour that ended with this series—and it may have been my favorite show experience. definitely my favorite big show. floaty, dreamy, eerie, as one might expect. but strange to feel like the entire (huge) audience was in that same floaty dreamy space. the audience seemed so quiet and relaxed and groovy—like we'd all had massages and sat in the sauna. peaceful.

cherry jammin'

tart treat

farmers scrambling to find harvest labor

insta

 

some instagrams of late. (pinky leon is making a nice shape in this one, no?) 

lover's spit

william wondriska

from  a long piece of string

love this folk dance found on rosa pomar's blog  
a very different kind of freestyle dancing
and choreographed by this same (from above link) anthony lee: wildfire and somebody that i used to know

sun sipping

julie's coffee and tea garden in alameda has a great back patio, with bright sun covered benches and shady coves and everything in between, plus plants and iron wings.

weekday carnival, a finnish blog

my cousin lotta's fashion, etc. blog (for swedish åhlens department store) is back 

this calls for a swedish song: redan glömda

hi little dog.

julia mint

falcon wright

fenster spring break

beach house zebra

thomsen's and vines

 

i love finding new favorite spots in alameda. i keep thinking i've seen all the cool stuff in alameda, but not so, luckily. this morning i discovered thomsen's garden center/vines cafe run by husband (in the cafe upstairs) and wife (in garden center downstairs). they've been there over 30 years and the place is super charming, with nooks with benches and surprises all over the cafe—birds flying above the molding, patterned floor, stained glass windows. i had to have a fika and buy a couple of plants, which i plan to hang stephanie style.

reuben margolin

bigger

a few years ago i saw this make episode on reuben margolin, an sf kinetic sculptor. randomly, last weekend, i saw one of his pieces, tule wave, in real life at the david brower gallery in berkeley. so beautiful and calming. see it in motion.

more

alameda houses 

right now my favorite on blunderbuss (partially because of how he sings "swea(t)-in" and "noyvous")

he looks pissed

but he is purring

thank you to sofia gatica

congratulations to courageous argentinian, sofia gatica, who has been fighting monsanto for over 10 years and is one of six leaders awarded the goldman environmental prize. (there's a great short video in the article too.)

it is completely baffling and disgusting that monsanto is allowed to continue their "work" (more like greedy exploitation and poisoning), given the long history of their products and actions killing, sickening, hurting people and the earth. the list of their truly evil deeds is so long and so many people fight against them (usually unsuccessfully and sometimes while having their lives/livelihoods threatened by monsanto in the process). how monsanto-ans live with themselves is a mystery.

$20

more green

especially me

green

gave the plants a sun bath while i could keep an eye on the plant-eating cat.

and knitted a cowl this weekend. took less than one skein! may have to do more in other colors.

the big trees that line alameda's streets are sprouting green leaves now, flourescent in the sunlight. the spring abundance is building.

b/w

feliz!

two backyard finds

tall yellow yellow flower and a fallen plane



i love this paper artist: nathalie boutté!

gunta stölzl

i know i've posted about gunta stölzl before at some point. photos above of her weavings/sketches from the book bauhaus 1919–1933: workshops for modernity

lots lots more found here

and some of the works of this talented hannah waldron remind me of gunta's.

in the interest of fairness

thought i'd post some recent dog flickr/tumblr favorites since i posted cats the other day.

this guy above was sniffing around in the plant nursery and would not stand still for a proper picture (despite the fact that the owner says the dog regularly has his picture taken by strangers).

sweet
this guy reminds me of a dog my family briefly had, waldo
charlie picking out wedding samples
cracks me up
cute
morning loo dog walk
another charlie
morning coffee
characters
venice bistro
i am the best
pernille
coffee date

lately

finding it hard to motivate to bicycle to the farmers' market in the rain this morning. maybe it will let up soon....

it's nice that

rachel's new necklaces!

william steig

as a child i loved sylvester and the magic pebble and the amazing bone by mr. steig. today i checked out the book william steig drawings, which includes many of his new yorker drawings. his drawings are so scribbly and ugly and beautiful and hilarious. amazing how something so scribbly can capture so much about gestures, life. in the introduction, lillian rose writes of steig's drawn world:

it's a place without money or machinery or 'things.' it's a world populated by artists, farmers, knights, ladies, gentlemen, lovers (many, many lovers); by lions, dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, birds, fish (congenial creatures all of them, but with every human fault); by drunks, violinists, bums, actors, clowns...an intimate, pastoral, not too dangerous world, where poetry rules and time does not pass.

this book contains a bunch of drawings of people serenading animals and vice versa. too funny.

more, bigger

worn right

i had to start an old trucks in alameda set.

wind-trimmed

threading in the choirs

someone recorded the lovely first song by the charming emil svanängen of loney dear last night at bottom of the hill

o

no one's leaving

harden my heart

cooling one of my favorites of hers