100 Days in the News

Day 50 project: JUnk B LIt II

2008-11-14T03:30:19Z

DIY Skylark lamp made from holiday lights and an old sign

Welcome to day 50 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 50 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it! That’s right! I’m half way through! ARGHHHHHH!

Today’s Inspiration:

Slot Bench: Utility furniture for urban homes

I dug through the news today and was still stuck on the whole light kick. What can I say? My room was still dark. More junk, more light.

Lamp plugs directly into outlet

Back view of lamp

Full back view of Lamp

A minimal lamp created in under thirty minutes

100 Days in the News:day fourty-nine project: JUnK B LIt

2008-11-13T05:15:52Z

Welcome to day 49 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 51 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s inspiration comes from Treehugger (which I am into as of late due to it’s news/activism/design mix)

Recycling is Bullshit; Make Nov. 15 Zero Waste Day, not America Recycles Day

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11.11.08
Design & Architecture (recycled)

The room where I’m staying is too dark. It’s lamp time. I found a cord and hook up in a closet here at the Coleman Center and found a perfectly useful busted bucket in the shed out back. WHa- LA!!!

JUnk B LIt!!!

cost of materials: $-30 I think I actually made something some people would pay for (I did say some people)

Amount of time spent: 45min.

amount of fun had: 10. I needed that light.

100 Days in the News: day fourty-eight project:Nature You Terrible BEAST!!

2008-11-12T04:54:59Z

Welcome to day 48 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 52 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s Inspiration is from Johnah Lehrer’s The Frontal Cortex:

The Cognitive Benefits of Nature

Category: Brain & Behavior
Posted on: November 10, 2008 11:10 AM, by Jonah Lehrer

So pardon me if I wax journal-ish but I simply cannot help it. I am in sunny Alabama in a tiny town of no more than 3,000 and I have a peace of mind I have not had in a while…things close down at 8pm. I could never live here, but man oh man, it is not so bad to visit. It’s ind of like visiting a relative: there are a set of commitments that apply no where else but you are off the hook for a lot of other things…

But let’s get to the point. I like Jonah Lehrer’s writing and have blogged about it before. I like the country just as much as anyone but I am a fan of the city too- where I feel relief in being surrounded by friends and familiar services, etc. Lehrer writes about “Attention Restoration Theory (ART) (which)provides an analysis of the kinds of environments that lead to improvements in directed-attention abilities…Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish. Unlike natural environments, urban environments are filled with stimulation that captures attention dramatically and additionally requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car) making them less restorative.”

Lehrer sums things up to say that this suggests that being in nature improves cognitive function. Which I like to think about, but doesn’t explain away the fact that great knowledge does not seem to be continually emerging from rural settings… you would think all of that cognitive power would lead rural residents to great academic accomplishments…what are all of these gently stimulated people of the world doing with their extra cognitive function?

I’m struggling with this idea a bit. I’m more inclined to believe that a bit of viewing nature as a relaxing and safe place has to do with nature as a place for escape from daily routine for the majority of our nation which now lives in urban settings. Nature is that “other” place, and a place which is easily idealized as it is infrequently visited in a generic fashion-

“Oh dear, observe the blue jay!”

“Yes Darling it’s majestic— look at it checking in on that nest! What a great parent”

( as the jay really fulfills it’s title as the “robbery jay” and eats young song birds for dinner…lovely right?)

Part of me is really disgusted by generic approaches to nature that make it seem like one huge anthopomorphised friend… I am totally an earth loving hippie but nature will also kick you butt:

Hurricanes, Tornados, earthquakes, tsunami, drought…or even the little stuff: brambles, hornets, snakes!!!

Natural environments in some cases seem to offer less danger unless…UNLESS… you are in a region with no medical care and get a small injury that turn into a large one? You trip and fall on a log, any log,fall, hit your head and pass out for days and are nibbled by foxes? You loose your way (happened at least once a year every year in the Smokey Mountains near where I used to live) and are found a week later dehydrated, ravenous and with hypothermia? You go up to peak off of the edge of a water fall and>oops< take a dive off the cliff?

Sure. I’m being a bit dramatic, but part of me thinks that nature only seems relieving when you are a bit out of touch with it and experience it as an “excursion”. The same way people from the country visit the city and see it only as a fun filled place… I know, I know, I am an artist arguing with scientists and it usually doesn’t end well.

But I am the one who would drive from the city every week or so back to my parents house in a small TN town and feel waves of panic as the lights grew fewer and fewer and the road snaked between dark hills. Here, you see one person out walking and it is SCARY! I just like thinking of telling Mark Twain that the wilderness will seem like “the safe place” some day. I think he’d laugh and get it and then give me a hard look and wait for the “just kidding!”

Here, alone in a white on white room at the artist’s residence quarters in York, Alabama I indulge in classic scare tactics:

A shadow show of real monsters I tell you, monsters! And these guys travel in all regions so warn your frontal cortex!!!

Total cost of materials: 0

amount of time spent: 1hr.

amount of fun had: 10 ( perhaps I am relieved and having more fun…)

100 Days in the News: day forty-seven project: Wealth Increase

2008-11-10T18:52:43Z

Welcome to day 47 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 53 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s inspiration is:

From Life, the Universe, and Everything:

Increasing Wealth

November 9, 2008 at 7:22 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

It’s really hard to get a handle on what is and isn’t improving in terms of labor and wage in this country. I have wondered if over the next few years the best idea is to a) consider more school b)work hard in the arts or c) to continue to diversify my practice as I have been over the past two years because the arts are going to screwed over by weakened foundations.

The noted article shared a few graphs that brought a few ideas together for me:

Increased education brings increased gains but there is perhaps a ceiling on increase wage to education increase. That is- more education may not necessarily equal more wage.

A professional degree my be more profitable that a doctoral degree.

While wages are generally staying the same, benefits in some sectors of work are eroding so that workers are increasingly responsible for health insurance and retirement.

It’s not very funny info but it’s the kind of data I’ve really been giving myself hell over lately.

Let there be a comic to ease the weight of this information!

I created this comic using Make Beliefs Comix generator!

Cost of Materials: $0

Amount of time spent: 30 min.

Amount of fun had: 9! the comic generator was fun and the information is useful.

100 Days in the News: day fourty-seven project: Music from Scrap

2008-11-13T04:48:38Z

Welcome to day 47 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 53 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s inspiration is:

from the MAKE blog:

Wall plays music when it rains…

Out walking today I came across some prime railroad scrap. Music was on the brain. End result:

Scrap-tastic wind chime!

Cost of materials: A big fat $0

amount of time spent: 45 min.

Amount of fun had: 9

100 Days in the News: day fourty-six project: hot water pillow

2008-11-13T04:38:20Z

Welcome to day 46 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 54 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s inspiration is:

Treehuggers’s:

Less Is More: Hot Water Bottles

by greenz.jp, Tokyo, Japan on 11. 7.08

Today’s project is pretty functional: I’m cold and want something more directly warming than my space heater. I disected my pillow and made it into a cuddly hot water bottle.

1. Open pillow

2. split foam padding inside

3. Insert glass bottle of very hot water

Cost of materials: $0

Time spent: 20 min.

Amount of fun had: 7- because I’m warm now!

100 Days in the News: day fourty-five project: ALL PURPOSE TOOL

2008-11-13T04:50:18Z

Welcome to day 45 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 52 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s Inspiration is:

from Apartment Therapy:

Stacking Utensil Set from Urban Outfitters

Rather than re-design, let us re-purpose.

Total cost of materials: $0

Time spent: 30 min.

Amount of fun had: 10. Felt good. I wished I looked at more things and envisioned flexibility and re-purposeing rather than rebuilding it all in my head- what’s here? what’s useful? A little excersize everyday to ask this: using things wrong, hanging pictures upside down and sideways, reading words backwards.

100 Days in the News:day fourty-four project: Mexican Walking Fish Commemorative Nails

2008-11-13T05:33:53Z

Welcome to day 44 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 56 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s inspiration is:

from Treehugger:

Ubercool “Mexican walking fish” Nearing Extinction

by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 11. 5.08

I’ve always had a fondness for the walking fish; it’s ridiculously cute and hard not to love it. Treehugger posted an article about it right as I found a package of blank fake nails in the store for 75 cents. “Axolotl” is spelled out from thumb to pinky. The rest is history.

Cost of materials: .75

time spent: 30 min.

Amount of fun had: 5

100 Days in the News: day fourty-one project: My Habits/My Map

2008-11-10T05:11:06Z

Welcome to day 41 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 59 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s Inspiration is:

Question: Where are the Best US Election Result Maps?

ATTRIBUTE

Tue 04 November 2008 at 8:34 PM
by infosthetics

In looking at maps of the country county and state during the election I began thinking of mapping my own personal space as a way to ahve influence in the way people experience a region. Today’s project is a map and walking tour of my life in the E. Liberty/Highland Park area that I will be moving from in the coming month. You can take a tour of my current haunts and perhaps run into me over the next month- after that I’m off to another location.

cost of materials: $0

time spent: 30 min.

amount of fun had: 7

100 Days in the News: day fourty project: Ideal Meal

2008-11-08T23:19:11Z

Welcome to day 40 of the 100 Days in the news project. For 60 more days I will be pulling news stories from my Google reader and making artwork about it!

Today’s Inspiration is:

How to Satisfy Your Sugar Cravings Without Ruining Your Diet

Monday November 3, 2008

Though still imperfect I am trying to discover how to balance my diet for optimal energy and health. In the past several months I have dramatically increased my intake of fresh fruits. I have been on and off successful with integrating veggies- lots of which has to do with time to cook meals and work load. This has been one busy month.

I always battle a sweet tooth and while weight has never really been an issue for me, moodiness because of sugar levels is so I try to avoid hardcore sweets and have juice or whole fruits throughout the day. This has worked well for me and I’m trying to figure out how to get myself hooked on vegetables in the same way.

One of the best things that happened for me in terms of nutrition has been a simple idea suggested to me this summer by my friend Sara Black of Backstory Cafe. Sara suggested the ROY G BIV diet which I also think of as the RGB diet- in which you try to eat something from every color of the rainbow everyday. This is not intended to induce weightloss but to increase variety in your meals. It’s also been a good excuse to make a meal look good by adding berries or peppers.

I created a drawing it put in my workspace to remind me to eath healthy rather than “convenient”.

Total cost of materials: $2

Amount of time spent: 30 min.

Amount of fun had: 6