moleskinerie

1000 Journals

C. McNair Wilson  on the 1000 Journals Project:

"Now a new wave of little books has been launched 1001 Journals. There, as with the original site you can register and sign up to have one of the new journals sent to you. You can also start your own journal to send around, or keep "closed" among a set group of friends, co-workers. You can also scan pages and download them to the website. I believe art was given to us by our Creator to provide a vehicle for us to illuminate, teach, and inspire each other through our individual creative expression. The original 1000 Journals Project and then Andrea's film do all that and so much more.

What number journal will you be?"

Learn more at "Tea with McNair"

Photo: The 1000 Journals Project.

Inspiration: Laure Volume

Insanely beautiful doodles and sketches by French artist Laure Volume.

View her notebooks

Glass House Moleskine Sketchbook Launch

To mark the launch of the Glass House Moleskine sketchbook, the Glass House in conjunction with Moleskine will co-host a launch party at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York on May 17, 2008 during the ICFF festivities to mark this special occasion.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the New York landmark, designed by Philip Johnson.

The Glass House + Moleskine are looking forward to launching this sketchbook during the ICFF, an important partner in the world of architecture, art, and design.

via Dexigner

The Glass House

Product link

Call For Entries Artists of All Mediums: Circulation

The strength and value in art is located not solely in its visuality, but also in its ability to circulate as an object, or at the most basic level- its grounds in a circulating idea.

Within a tiny droplet of blood, there are some 5 million red blood cells. It takes about 20 seconds for each of these red blood cells to circle the whole body. These red blood cells will each make approximately 250,000 round trips of the body before being replaced by another red blood cell.

USA Today has a daily circulation of 2,528,437. In one year, that amounts to 922,879,505 reads.

By the end of the Civil War, between one-third and one-half of all U.S. paper currency in circulation was counterfeit.

The ice age cycles were influenced by changes in ocean circulation arising from changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

Booksmart Studio is seeking submission of artist works that confront, explore, exploit, challenge, and investigate the modes, methods, and effects of circulation. Keeping in line with the diverse modes of circulation and dissemination, the exhibition is open to all mediums.

The deadline for entry is March 28, 2008.

visit: http://www.booksmartstudio.com/news.php?section=1&NID=%2098
for info and entry form.

[via Justin Solitrin]

Inspiration: Courtroom Sketch Artists

From Ironic Sans:

In 1996, Supreme Court Justice David Souter told a congressional panel that “the day you see a camera come into our courtroom, it’s going to roll over my dead body.” While the controversy over whether or not cameras should be allowed in courtrooms rages on, sketch artists remain fairly non-controversial, covering even the most important trials. The general public sees their artwork on the news, online, and in print. These artists see the trials for us, and often their artwork is our only glimpse into the proceedings.

I found myself wondering who these artists are. Is courtroom sketching a full time job? Are these people fine artists or commercial artists? And what kind of artwork do they do outside the courtroom?

Read the full post.

Book link: "Captured"

Tale of the Genji

"In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone. Probably aware of what was happening, she fell seriously ill and came to spend more time at home than at court.

It may have been because of a bond in a former life that she bore the emperor a beautiful son, a jewel beyond compare. The emperor was in a fever of impatience to see the child on the earliest day possible. When he was brought to the court, the paulownia was full in bloom in the garden.

The emperor's eldest son was the grandson of the Minister of the Right. The world assumed that with this powerful support he would one day be named crown prince; but the new child was far more beautiful."

Tale of the Genji
UNESCO Global Heritage Pavillon
LINK

[Originally posted 5.25.05]
 

Moleskine as a fashion accessory

"it wouldn't be the same without the moleskine in his left hand...!"

From "The Sartorialist"
On the Street...The Shorter Shape Of Outerwear

© 2008 The Sartorialist

[Thanks Shannon]

The Last Calligraphers

"For centuries, handwriting was the definitive mark of social status, education and liberal values in India. Calligraphers mastered the swooping Urdu script in ivory-tower institutions and penned copies of the Koran for wealthy patrons. The pinnacle of a katib's achievement meant a seat at court and a chance to earn the sultan's ear." - Scott Carney

The Musalman is the only handwritten newspaper in Asia and has been operational since 1927. Here is their story.

LINK

[via Design Observer]

Andrea Musso: “Music on my Moleskine”

An unusual exhibition of illustrations by Andrea Musso: portraits of international musicians taken during concerts, festivals and performances; both the drawings and the music are “live”.

“I’ve never played any instrument nor sung, I can’t read a score; on the contrary, I don’t know music at all, and I’m not even sure I’m able to appreciate it. I do love listening to music, particularly I love watching musicians because I’m convinced that music is in the body and in the face of people who play it: the passion, the enjoyment, the strain, this is about music but has nothing to do with scores, technique (even if, maybe, technique is a form of strain, too). Therefore I listen and watch, I let myself go to melodies I don’t know, and I do the most natural thing for me: I record those faces, hands, instruments in my sketchbook so I can look at them later and re-live them, in peace and quiet. From an abbey to a smokey club, from a castle to the square of a village, from a church to a street where strolling musicians play, my Moleskine is always with me: it has travelled throughout Italy, half of Europe and a pretty big piece of the world. And it loves music, maybe more than I do.”

andreamusso.it

Exhibition of 2005:
http://www.exibart.com/profilo/eventiv2.asp?IDelemento=24650

Virtual gallery:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreamusso
http://www.jazzitalia.net/disegnifoto/andreamusso/

What's In My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

What's In My Journal
by William Stafford

[Thanks JC]

Image: "78/365 lovers moleskine" by Deb Foster
Also on etsy
© All rights reserved

"Devil May Care"

Latest dispatch from M16 News:

"Following the news of Penguin's early publicity push on the upcoming James Bond continuation novel "Devil May Care" earlier in the week, the Guardian reports some more details on the event.

Penguin transformed its penthouse into a Bond-themed paradise, with martinis, scantily clad girls and free Moleskine Bond diaries..."

LINK

More here and here.

MONU : magazine on urbanism #8

One of the most grotesque effects of globalisation is that a process which is supposed to unify the world and bind people and the biosphere more tightly together into one global system, ended up increasing the amount of individual countries worldwide. When in 1983 the term "globalisation" was popularised, only 159 countries were members of the United Nations. Today, we recognize 191 states. It has been speculated that there are still more than 200 unrecognised regions around the world which strive for seperation. Such a global particularisation process is going to produce large numbers of new political entities and new jurisdictions with thousands of kilometres of new borders, which will reshape entire regions and cities.

When cities are located close to borders, they often foster very specific economic features and urban anomalies, which can not be found in cities located in the very centre of a country. Wherever two jurisdictions come into contact, special economic opportunities arise. Cities in border regions may flourish because of the provision of excise or of import - export services - legal or quasi-legal, corrupt or corruption-free. Different regulations on either side of a border encourage services to position themselves in cities close to borders. The infamous prostitution clusters at the German - Czech border provides such a case. Human economic traffic across borders may involve also mass commuting between cities. Very extreme urban border cases can be witnessed specifically in cities along borders which separate First World from Third World countries. The conflicts at the US-Mexico border, for example, have transformed the city of San Diego into the world's largest gated community.

Cities located close to borders obviously display an urbanism which differs ultimately from the urbanism of cities that are located more centrally. In our MONU #8 winter issue we aim to explore, reveal and illuminate the condition of such Border Urbanism and invite essays, manifestoes, photography, speculations, sophisticated analysis or simple meditations. MONU #8 will be published in the winter of 2007. Submissions or questions should be sent to monu@b-o-a-r-d.nl by the end of December 2007. www.b-o-a-r-d.nl/monu

Inspiration: Richard Sweeney

This demonstration of art through engineered structure is truly inspiring, and is a major influence on the way I go about producing my work- to create objects that are simple to construct yet complex in appearance, and are efficient in the way they are produced, both in terms of construction time and material use. The greatest example of this principle- achieving the most from the least- are structures in nature. As in the greatest architecture, natural forms show patterns of repetition, whereby the very most is made out of the least material and energy possible, to create forms that appear amazingly complex, yet are based on very basic units and patterns of growth- these are objects that have beauty on all levels, from the way they are constructed, to the appearance of the final form.

Richard Sweeney

Visit.

[via Coudal]

Dagbok East India Trading Company

Another incredible collection of prints at BibliOdyssey:

"The Swedish East India Company was formed under Royal Charter in 1731 and granted exclusive national trading rights with Asia, mostly through the port of Canton ( near Hong Kong). Round-trip voyages from the company's headquarters in Göteborg took around eighteen months and the major commodities transported back were tea, silk, porcelain and spices.

In all, there were 127 voyages undertaken prior to the company's becoming insolvent in 1813 due to reduced profits during the Napoleonic years. Eight major sailing vessels were either lost or partially destroyed while the company was operating, including the 'Götheborg', which famously sank on return to the harbour in Göteborg in 1745. In the 1990s, marine archaeologists were able to salvage some of the original ship, and after a ten year rebuilding project, a to-scale replica undertook a nineteen month voyage from Sweden to China and back, returning to Göteborg in June 2007..."

Visit.

Jim Woodring's "Thrice-Blessed Moleskine"

The latest pages of whimsical critters from Jim Woodring's notebook.

LINK

© 2007 JW All Rights Reserved 

Book: "Eyes to Fly With" by Graciela Iturbide

    "The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves."

    —Graciela Iturbide

Graciela Iturbide has found her inner theme photographing the Zapotec women of Juchitan and the Mixtec goat butchers of Oaxaca, in the company of Nobel laureates and world-renowned artists, among mourners at Mexican cemeteries and Indian death houses. Each image stands on its artistic own, but each also tells something about the fascinating artist who made it. In Eyes to Fly With, which includes both iconic images and previously unpublished work, Graciela Iturbide has assembled both a retrospective of her career and an introspective self-portrait—in short, an artist's art book.

In the late 1960s, the great Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo took Iturbide as his assistant. It was a fond and fruitful apprenticeship, but Iturbide eventually sought her own career because, as she says in a conversation with the writer Fabienne Bradu, "I had to have influences, but I also had to suppress them and achieve my own expression." This book pulls together Iturbide's most expressive work, including select self-portraits. Bradu's interview, which appears in both English and Spanish, reveals the stories behind classic images such as "Our Lady of the Iguanas." (Did she pose the iguanas on that woman's head, or was it photographic serendipity?) Bradu also draws out intimate reflections on photography, Mexico, M. A. Bravo, famous friends, indigenous mythology, death, and dreams, so that turning the page to a viejo gazing at airborne gulls, it's impossible not to hear Iturbide's words, "One day... I dreamed a sentence over and over: 'In my country I will plant birds.'" Filled with such personal images and Iturbide's own voice, Eyes to Fly With is the private tour of the artist's apartment that every admirer dreams of taking.

Book link

How to do Gravestone Rubbings

1. Make sure the stone is clean and completely dry.  Tape will not adhere  to a wet stone, and the dampness will make the paper fragile and liable to tear.  Besides ruining any chance of a rubbing, this may cause you to accidentally damage the stone with your rubbing material. 
2. Cut a piece of your paper or other rubbing material to a size slightly larger than the stone. If possible, write any information on or about the stone, inscription, date, location, etc. on the back of the paper before doing the rubbing so you don't smear your rubbing. Or, carry a small notebook, write the information on a page, tear out and roll up with your rubbing.
3. Tape the paper to the stone.  Make sure that it is secure so that it won't slide as you are rubbing and cause a blurred image, and that it covers the face of the stone completely, so that you won't get marks on it.  
4. If only doing lunettes, please be sure that a large enough area is covered to protect the stone.
5. With your fingers, press the paper lightly against the stone.  This will cause the paper to indent into the carvings, resulting in a clearer image, with less rubbing medium accidentally transferring into "blank" areas.
6. Using rubbing wax, a large crayon, charcoal, or chalk, gently start to rub along the outside edges - creating a "frame" for your rubbing.  Using  long, even strokes following the same direction, fill in the "frame".
7. Rub lightly to start with, and then apply more pressure to darken in the design if it suits you. Be very careful and gentle.
8. If you used chalk for your rubbing, then carefully spray the paper with a chalk spray such as Krylon.  Be very careful not to get any on the tombstone. It is best to remove the paper from the stone and lay it flat on the ground in an area away from any stones before spraying.
9. When the rubbing is done, carefully remove it from the tombstone and trim the edges to suit your liking. Remove the tape from the paper, being careful not to tear the edges of the paper.

Savingraves.org

Image: waynesville K12

1. Make sure the stone is clean and completely dry.  Tape will not adhere  to a wet stone, and the dampness will make the paper fragile and liable to tear.  Besides ruining any chance of a rubbing, this may cause you to accidentally damage the stone with your rubbing material. 
2. Cut a piece of your paper or other rubbing material to a size slightly larger than the stone. If possible, write any information on or about the stone, inscription, date, location, etc. on the back of the paper before doing the rubbing so you don't smear your rubbing. Or, carry a small notebook, write the information on a page, tear out and roll up with your rubbing.
3. Tape the paper to the stone.  Make sure that it is secure so that it won't slide as you are rubbing and cause a blurred image, and that it covers the face of the stone completely, so that you won't get marks on it.  
4. If only doing lunettes, please be sure that a large enough area is covered to protect the stone.
5. With your fingers, press the paper lightly against the stone.  This will cause the paper to indent into the carvings, resulting in a clearer image, with less rubbing medium accidentally transferring into "blank" areas.
6. Using rubbing wax, a large crayon, charcoal, or chalk, gently start to rub along the outside edges - creating a "frame" for your rubbing.  Using  long, even strokes following the same direction, fill in the "frame".
7. Rub lightly to start with, and then apply more pressure to darken in the design if it suits you. Be very careful and gentle.
8. If you used chalk for your rubbing, then carefully spray the paper with a chalk spray such as Krylon.  Be very careful not to get any on the tombstone. It is best to remove the paper from the stone and lay it flat on the ground in an area away from any stones before spraying.
9. When the rubbing is done, carefully remove it from the tombstone and trim the edges to suit your liking. Remove the tape from the paper, being careful not to tear the edges of the paper.

Savingraves.org

Image: waynesville K12

NYC Compass Decals

Getting around New York City can sometimes be a bewildering experience. Help is on the way.

Now the city is experimenting with a new way to help people go where they want to go without wasting more steps than they have to. The city and the private business improvement district for the neighborhood around Grand Central Terminal have installed compass-shaped decals on sidewalks, right where riders emerge from heavily used subway stairwells.

The gold-on-black decals are 24 inches in diameter, larger than a large pizza but smaller than a manhole cover. They carry two kinds of information: directions for north, east, south and west, and the names of the nearest streets.

Should the first decals prove to be a hit, city officials hope they can team up with other business improvement districts and propagate the decals in other parts of the city where exiting subway riders could use a guide.

One of the decals that officials showed off yesterday is on 42nd Street near Third Avenue, outside a passageway between a Starbucks and a Foot Locker store that leads to and from the subway. It got mostly good reviews from people who noticed it as they walked by.

Surface Navigation Help for Subway Riders
By James Barron
Read the full article at The New York Times

LINK [Registration required]

Body Dysmorphic Disorder?

Contumacy Singh posted this intriguing Moleskine entry at our FLICKR group:

"We later discovered that this person is a transsexual who runs an illegal operation injecting industrial-grade silicone into other men wishing to be women. She obviously partakes of the stuff herself."

Image link

© All rights reserved CS

Inspiration: The Power of Paper

Awesome Citroën ad reminds us that some things are still better done on paper.

Agency: H-Paris, France
Creative Director: Gilbert Scher
Art Director: Fabrice Delacourt
Copywriter: Olivier Desmettre
Director: No Brain

Clique!

National Design Week

On October 15, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will launch its first-ever National Design Week, an initiative aiming to elevate the role of design in everyday life. Centered on the museum’s National Design Awards gala, which takes place October 18, the event provides outreach to school teachers and students and partners with design organizations across the country.

Cooper-Hewitt director Paul Warwick Thompson calls National Design Week, which will be sponsored by Target, “a major platform for celebrating the best practices in design education.” During the five-day event, Cooper-Hewitt will offer free admission to all museum visitors and host a series of free public programs, including a panel with the 2006 National Design Award winners moderated by this year’s Design Mind Award winner Paola Antonelli. The museum will also present an educator open house and an after-school teen design fair with a keynote by MTV's on-air creative team. Nationwide, various design organizations and schools will host design events.

National Design Week

LINK

The European Digital Library Teasures

Henrik Ibsen's first dramatic work, published privately under the pseudonym Brynjulf Bjarme in 1850. At the time he was employed as an apprentice at a pharmacy in the little town Grimstad and had to do his writing late at night. The critics were not favourable. Of 250 copies, only 45 were sold. The first performance took place in Stockholm, at Nya Teatern in 1881. First production in Norway: 1935.

LINK

The European Digital Library Teasures

[Thanks JC]

1000 Stories: On The Road meets The Motorcycle Diaries

GERMAN FILMMAKER SAYS: "AMERICANS WANTED"
AS HE EMBARKS ON TRIP TO GATHER 1000 STORIES

On The Road meets The Motorcycle Diaries, remixed for the 21st century

NEW YORK (September 17)-- The Goethe-Institut New York, a branch of the Federal Republic of Germany's famed global cultural institution, today announced the launch of its most innovative artistic endeavor to date, 1000Stories. On Thursday, September 27, from 6:30pm – 9pm, the Goethe-Institut New York will host "New Yorkers Wanted: the 1000Stories Launch Party," featuring filmmaker Florian Thalhofer, DJ Maxx Klaxon (SPLICE, Popular Front Records), projections by video artist Katja Loher ( www.katjaloher.com ), and more. Admission is free, and all are invited (RSVP to LCERAND@gmail.com). The Goethe-Institut New York is located at 1014 Fifth Avenue at 83rd Street, tel. (212) 439-8700.

Starting in New York on October 1, Florian Thalhofer, a new-media artist and documentary filmmaker from Berlin, will travel all over the United States by motorcycle (provided by BMW), while U.S. filmmaker Mark Simon will travel throughout Germany by car. During their month-long journeys, each filmmaker will write about his experiences, collect stories, and conduct interviews, posted daily as a video weblog, or "vlog," at 1000stories.com . Their route will be determined by interested folks in the U.S. and in Germany who reply to their "Americans wanted"/ "Germans wanted" online ad. Readers are invited to get in touch via 1000stories.com to suggest itineraries and potential interview candidates and to comment on the project. Members of the media can download hi-res photographs, etc. at 1000stories.com/press.

This fall, as Americans celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, a paean to the restless spirit and innate desire to explore the unknown that thread their way through popular culture, a German filmmaker embarks on a "social experiment" that marries this legacy with technological innovation and harnesses the best of social media to determine and document his experience.  Influences such as Easy Rider, jazz, and abstract expressionism will become even more apparent as we discover what lies at the heart of America and how it continues to evolve today.

Florian Thalhofer (thalhofer.com) was born in 1972, and lives and works in Berlin. He is a documentary filmmaker and new-media artist who invented the [Korsakow system] ( korsakow.com/ksy ) to suit his unique form of expression, based on the principle that in reality, things occur simultaneously rather than in succession. With this software, Thalhofer has conceived an effective nonlinear way to tell his stories that utilizes the computer as an ideal medium. Like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, the highly interactive Korsakow system allows the user to navigate the film as a series of individual choices. Thalhofer has been the recipient of the Literatur.digital award, the reddot design award, and the Werkleitz Award, among others. He studied at Universität der Künste Berlin, where he lectured after obtaining his degree. He was a visiting professor at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig and teaches at the Mediamatic-Institut Amsterdam. Several of Thalhofer's [Korsakow] films are available on DVD, and [13thShop] and [Forgotten Flags] are scheduled for release by mairisch-Verlag, Hamburg, and Mediamatic, Amsterdam, respectively.

A Map of the Truelove River

This early 20th century postcard, Shewing the Course of the Truelove River, charts that stream from its two headlands in the Fancy Free Plateau (Angelina River) and at Indifference Hill (Edwin River). Those two flows unite at the Falls of Dislike, follow a united course as the Truelove River through the Valley of Disdain – between the Mountains of Melancholy and Determination Hills.

After the Evasion Rapids, a river branch dead-ends at Despair Marsh, while its main flow turns sharply south at Pity Bend, then avoiding Friendship Corner to reach Tenderness Crossing, Kissing Ford and eventually Trothplight.

Then Opposition Bend, Angrysire, Separation Deep and Misery Marsh complete the encirclement of Sentimental Meadow. When the river flows out of Misery Marsh via Correspondence Outlet, it manages to slide by Richrival Bend, Sickbed and Sinking.

More at strange maps

Inspiration: Shadow Monsters

Philip Worthington's Shadow Monsters was on display at GC07, and it may have been—no, definitely was—the most amazing thing I saw at the whole show. Essentially, it's a projector that adds extra animations and sounds to your shadow puppets. And it's a lot of raw, unadulterated fun.

Kotaku

[via Design Observer]

Solvent Transfers

One of the coolest and easiest ways to transfer images to another medium (paper, wood, shirt, etc.) is by using the solvent transfer method. Utilizing cheap, easily attainable materials, this process is a good alternative to the time-extensive silk screening method. Solvent transfers can be done in a variety of different ways, producing a nearly limitless array of results, but we'll focus on the most straight-forward approach in today's how-to.

Dan Chilton
DIY Life

Image: "pandora's suitcase" by the3robbers

 

The Art of Gabi Campanario

I discovered Moleskine a couple of years ago. Bought my first one in 2004 but didn't really use it until recently, then I was hooked. I use it mostly during my commute to my job as news artist at the Seattle Times to sketch fellow bus riders and people on the street waiting for their bus. It's always on my backpack.

I went to Journalism school in my native Spain and have worked in newspaper art departments since graduating from college in 1992.

Gabi Campanario

Visit his website.
View his works on FLICKR

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.

The Sketches of Fernando Cinquegrani.

Pages of beautiful drawings by Fernando Cinquegrani.

Check it out.

[Grazie Santo!]

© Copyright. FC

Indian Summer by Tim Baynes

JET BOY

I am travelling into the interior, from Mumbai to New Delhi (700 miles) with three Chinese ladies. All this courtesy of Jet Air a full flight in the world’s smallest 737 replete with screaming two year olds placed strategically throughout the aircraft.

I had arrived in Mumbai on Thursday midday and was disappointed not to find pigs in the airport car park as reported by Mike. I billeted at the Taj Lands End in Bandra. The Bandra district is home to most Bollywood stars so I felt quite at home in this massive hotel with mock regency interiors.

I have been assiduously following sundry ‘Advice to Travellers’ - only bottled water, keeping tooth brush in a sealable polythene bag, avoiding salads and fruit (never a chore).  Therefore, so far, I have experienced no untoward feelings in the downstairs department.

METRO MUMBAI

The experience so far has been strictly metropolitan; two upscale restaurants, the later serving exquisite sea food (curried strongly) and on the first evening a visit to a disco. Given my paranoia in relation to diet and staying off the toilet, I was concerned about the name of the venue; the invitation to the ‘ice breaker’ party was at a club called Poison

QUOTE “Poison is one of the most famous night spots of Mumbai, and probably one of the very few place that are likely to be active on a Thursday Night J However, being more of a lounge / night club, they do not serve dinner. We have made sufficient provisions for appetizers…but just thought ill point this out so that everyone can prepare accordingly”

No matter – it was hip hop night (excellent music and I was familiar with most of the artists featured) and by the time I left at 12:30 am the queue of well dressed, highly attractive young people had wrapped itself around several blocks.

BLOW UP

One or two drawings completed, on Saturday morning, I emerged from the chiller cabinet/hotel lobby out into 30 degrees of heat at 9 am to make a picture of the Rock View Hotel, out on to which I look each morning from my room. The hotel was one of the 10 locations bombed one Friday in 1996. The bombed out rooms stared back it me as I looked out of my hotel room. I later learnt that an internecine dispute has prevented the Rock from being redeveloped.

Now I look forward to Delhi hopefully without the belly as I stare at my in-flight snack.

DEHLI: STAGE TWO OF THE JOURNEY – ABOARD FLIGHT 407 SINGAPORE AIRLINES TO SINGAPORE

Well the airport car park Delhi was more interesting.  A ‘take charge’ porter in luggage reclaim took charge. He got us through the crowds and followed the hotel driver dutifully to the car park. Along the journey he ‘collected’ a few other men who also claimed to be porters and wrestled him for the trolley

The closer we got to the people carrier the more disturbing the fracas. I was keeping an eye on the girls, herding them together and got some cash ready to bung our porter from reclaim. Whatever, I gave him the money and ducked swiftly into the van and let them sort it out.

Sunday morning marathon sightseeing in Delhi and in the afternoon the drive, 210 kilometres to Agra to see the Taj Mahal the next day: the Wonder of the World who’s  name that launched a thousand take-aways.

DEHLI MOSQUES AND LUTCHENS

King George V commissioned architect Edwin Lutyens to layout out the central administrative area of the city - very different from designing large houses in the Home Counties of England. At the heart Lutyens placed the impressive Rashtrapati Bhawan, formerly the Viceroy's House and the arresting India Gate. He collaborated with fellow architect Herbert Baker to create an impressive body of Edwardian architecture topped out with distinctly Moorish features. It is now known as the LBZ in Delhi – the Lutyens Baker Zone.

Our Toyota people carrier cut it way through the crowed Chandni Chowk market area and getting out and clambered up the almost sheer flight of steps to the Jama Masjid Mosque. Jama Masjid was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and is one of the largest and best known mosques in India. We left our shoes at the courtyard door and I donned a wrap to cover my bare legs. The building, in local red sandstone ascends impressively from its central court yard and in a heat the burns the soles of bear feet the whole site appears the hover above Delhi.

We were taken to the Qutub Minar is the tallest brick minaret in the world, 72.5 metres high (237.8 ft) It is  significant example of Indo-Islamic Architecture, inspired by the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan and  now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It towers above us, made of fluted red sandstone, covered with intricate carvings and verses from the Qur'an. In 40 degrees of heat we drifted around the surrounding buildings among many fine examples of Indian artwork all built around 12th century.

Visit his site.

View more of his art.

Ten Things to Do Before This Article Is Finished

“Zen has no goals,” according to a traditional koan. “It is always on its way.”

If so, Rachael Hubbard, a preschool teacher in Salem, Ore., will not be accompanying it. Ms. Hubbard has many goals — 78, to be exact. And it is only by dutifully ticking them off, she said, that she has found her path toward enlightenment.

Two years ago Ms. Hubbard compiled what is known as a life list, a contract with herself enumerating dozens of goals she hoped to accomplish before she died (build a house for Habitat for Humanity, read “Pride and Prejudice,” etc.) and posted it online.

“I just felt like I was slowly getting older and was looking around saying, ‘Well, I haven’t really done a whole lot with my life yet,’ ” she recalled.

But once she began the journey prescribed by her list, it quickly became an addiction.

Ten Things to Do Before This Article Is Finished
By Alex Williams

The New York Times/Sunday Style [Registration required]

Dave Goes to Mongolia

From July 14 through July 30th I will be making a trip to Mongolia, where I will be dividing my time between Ulaanbaatar, the Gobi Desert, and a few villages in outer Mongolia. At present, I am doing my best to try to raise funds that will mean that I can buy enough film to get me through the trip and also make sure that my finances at home don’t totally disintegrate in my absence (ah, the life of an artist!). While the trip itself will certainly serve many purposes for pleasure and personal exploration, I will primarily be using this journey as a point of focus for producing new bodies of work, both photographic and written. My principal objectives are to produce a new series of fine art prints, an illustrated travelogue of sorts here on the web site, and a self-published hardcover book combining the primary written works with the final photographic images. Secondary focus will be given to producing several magazine submissions both in the form of photographic portfolios and travel articles.

I will be packing fairly light, checking only my tripod and a small suitcase with clothing on the plane, and taking my cameras, notebooks, and film bag with me as carryon. Capture will be split between digital and film, a large portion being done in B&W on medium format film equipment, which some might find surprising. Color work will be generally captured using a Canon digital SLR. The reason for the emphasis on film has to do with personal preference and nothing more. I love my digital equipment, but wonderful though it is, it isn’t necessarily the right tool for every job (at least not the whole thing).

David R. Munson
To learn more, visit his site.

Brasileiros : The voice and the face of Brazilians

São Paulo – Brave Brazilians telling stories about so many other brave Brazilians. This is the proposal of monthly magazine Brasileiros (Brazilians), by the publishing house that goes by the same name, to be launched on the 28th of June, all over Brazil. Hélio, Ricardo, Nirlando and team are going to show readers the stories of Faustinos, Franciscos, Walmores, Marílias, Déboras and Amélias. “We are going to bring great articles back to Brazilian magazine journalism,” stated Hélio Campos Mello, the newsroom director.

Brasileiros was born from an ancient idea by Campos Mello, those that you write, take note of in a Moleskine – the legendary notebook used, among others, by Picasso – and plan to execute one day. It arose when he was still working for magazine Isto É, published by Editora Três, where he spent 12 years as the newsroom director. “In a weekly magazine, many things have to be left out. It is a constant struggle for space, an exercise in guiding a funnel. So I thought: I want to make a more elaborate magazine, where subjects may be better worked," explained the journalist and photographer.

"The voice and the face of Brazilians"
By Cláudia Abreu
ANBA

Read the full article

[via Chris Meisenzahl]

Inside the Minds of Designers

"Its amazing that the Moleskine has manage to brand and associate themselves with the great talents of our time. Don’t get me wrong as I think this is a good thing, but I wonder if this branding aspect has been taken too far. Maybe its just me, but I find that the Moleskine brand promise to be very bi-polar. On one hand the brand makes me feel superior because by using my moleskin I can be associated with such pedigree of talents. On the other hand, it makes me feel inferior as I feel that I should only use my moleskin if I am able or about to reproduce that next design classic, otherwise I should just stay away!

Furthermore, for a sketch book to come in at such a high price point, it becomes almost too painful for me to make a mark on its pristine pages. This I find defeats the purpose of using a sketchbook in the first place as it is suppose to be a repository of quick, down and dirty ideas. The brand makes me keep on thinking that, is want I am about to write or draw something that, in years to come, people would want to see? This is probably why my moleskin still sits on my book shelf, and STILL in its wrapper. Sniff. I love this product so much but I just cant bare to use it..."

Design Sojourn
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WIN FREE MOLESKINE! The 2007 Moleskinerie Summer Giveaways

Brought to you by Kikkerland Design Inc, NY

 

Zack Houston: Supermarket Poet

Zach Houston is a man after my own heart. He's a poet. But unlike most poets he believes in marketing.

"Need a poem written while you shop?" said Zach Houston.

Supermarketing.

"Poems with your groceries-need a poem?" said Houston.

On the spot, To order.

"What do you want a poem about?" asked Houston.

At a Supermarket near the Berkley Bowl,

There's both food for the body and for the soul.

"Need a poem written?" said Houston.

Groceries may be what your shopping's about but your poem will be ready by the time you check out.

"Poems while you shop? Need a poem written?" said Houston.

Poems about anything says Zach Houston's sign.

"Love and motorcycles? Oh man." said Houston.

"A poem about affordable housing in Berkeley." said a woman named Rose.

"Oh my. " said Houston.

And that motorbike poem was written indeed

The Osgood Files
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Running the Numbers

Toothpicks, 2007
60x99

Depicts 8 million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007
Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait 

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[Thnaks JC]

Meet the Moleskine Girls

Moleskine Girls
By Minkoff

© All rights reserved

View the FLICKR Photoset
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They Needed to Talk

"The details are a bit sketchy now, but everyone agrees the picture was taken in Memphis, Tennessee, on a late summer night in 1973. Karen Chatham, the young woman in blue, recalls that she had been out drinking when she met up with Lesa Aldridge, the woman in red. Lesa didn't drink at the time, but both were 18, the legal age then. As the bars closed at 3 a.m., the two followed some other revelers to a friend's house nearby. In the mix was a 30-something man who had been taking pictures all night. "I always thought of Bill as just like us," Karen says today, "until years later, when I realized that he was famous."

"They Needed to Talk"
By Emily Yellin
The Smithsonian

Read the full article

Inspiration: Paul Poiret

Paul Poiret is best known for jettisoning the corset, thereby liberating women from the figure-distorting silhouettes that had existed in one form or another since the Renaissance. Poiret learned his trade in the 1890s, selling sketches to fashion houses and taking apprenticeships at Doucet and Worth, the leading couturiers of the time. But he was disdainful of their frothy style. "The taste for the refinements of the eighteenth century," Poiret wrote, "had led all women into a sort of deliquescence." In both Europe and the United States, Belle Epoque style was notable for the pinched, swanlike curves produced by its corsets. In this 1901 illustration, the woman looks exasperated by both her suitor and her clothes.

"The Way We Move"
How Paul Poiret freed us from the corset.
By Josh Patner

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Join Postcrossing

The goal of this project is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world, for free. Well, almost. The main line is: if you send a postcard, you'll receive at least one back, from a random postcrosser somewhere in the world.

Why? Because, like the author, there are lots of people who like to receive stuff by mail. If you add to that, the surprise factor of receiving postcards from different places in the world that you probably never heard about, you can turn your mailbox into a little surprise box.

Postcrossing

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Camera from Paris

Disposable camera that contains 27 undeveloped souvenir shots of Paris photographed by up-and-coming artists (every camera is different.)

Uptoyoutoronto.com

[Click "Play"]

Tale of the Genji

"In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone. Probably aware of what was happening, she fell seriously ill and came to spend more time at home than at court.

It may have been because of a bond in a former life that she bore the emperor a beautiful son, a jewel beyond compare. The emperor was in a fever of impatience to see the child on the earliest day possible. When he was brought to the court, the paulownia was full in bloom in the garden.

The emperor's eldest son was the grandson of the Minister of the Right. The world assumed that with this powerful support he would one day be named crown prince; but the new child was far more beautiful."

Tale of the Genji
UNESCO Global Heritage Pavillon
LINK

[Originally posted 5.25.05]

"In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone. Probably aware of what was happening, she fell seriously ill and came to spend more time at home than at court.

It may have been because of a bond in a former life that she bore the emperor a beautiful son, a jewel beyond compare. The emperor was in a fever of impatience to see the child on the earliest day possible. When he was brought to the court, the paulownia was full in bloom in the garden.

The emperor's eldest son was the grandson of the Minister of the Right. The world assumed that with this powerful support he would one day be named crown prince; but the new child was far more beautiful."

Tale of the Genji
UNESCO Global Heritage Pavillon
LINK

[Originally posted 5.25.05]

An exhibition of Tibetan Calligraphy

Tibetan script: ume' and tsugring
Om ma ni pad me Hum (Om mani peme Hum)
"Hail to the jewel in the lotus"

An exhibition of Tibetan Calligraphy
Forty-six works written in ink on paper by P. N. Dhumkhang

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Inspiration: Alegrias

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Online Comic Creation Process

Debbie Ridpath Ohi  describes how she does her art:

"First, I think of an idea. In comics, no matter how good your illustration skills might be, your comic will still be a flop if your idea sucks. I carry around a Moleskine notebook for my ideas (whether illustration or writing).

For multi-panel strips like Will Write For Chocolate, I’ve created Corel Painter templates of 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-panel strips.
I’ll usually type in the text first, then create a new layer and sketch in the art using a variant of the Smooth Round Pen, using a light grey.
First, I think of an idea. In comics, no matter how good your illustration skills might be, your comic will still be a flop if your idea sucks. I carry around a Moleskine notebook for my ideas (whether illustration or writing)..."

"Online Comic Creation Process"
Read the full post at Notes on Design

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

Sketch by Ori Toor,
Tel Aviv

Image link

    Some rights reserved

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday. Thanks to Jon-Michael at A Higher Level for the kind mention.

 

Inspiration: Light Wind

An outside lamp drawn from our home surroundings. The gently sweeping Dutch windmills were actually perfect generators of their own. With that in mind, we made this lamp. With every breeze it stores energy, enough to enjoy every summerevening until forever. Contemporary vs traditional, art vs functionality. Shaped by its function the big prop spans over one meter on each side. It is a self supporting light source that marks the landscape.

Demakersvan

LINK

Lost 'Little Prince' drawing found in Japan

Francois D'Agay, nephew of late French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery displays a book of "The Little Prince." A drawing found in Japan has turned out to be a lost page in the original edition of Saint-Exupery's classic, the French aviator-turned-writer's nephew said Wednesday.(AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

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Grand Opening: The American Gallery of Juror Art

"This post inaugurates the American Gallery of Juror Art, the first in the nation of its kind so far as I know, showcasing art done by actual jurors while they were actually on jury duty.

[Never Eat Alone & Milwaukee County Jury Duty, by Mike Rohde]

Mike Rohde, a visual designer who, like me, lives in Milwaukee, has kindly agreed to allow his drawing to be the inaugural work in the American Gallery of Juror Art.  Mike is also a blogger, it turns out; he blogs "about design, writing, mobile computing, technology, travel, cycling, books, music and other stuff"..."

The American Gallery of Juror Art

Deliberations

[via Mike Rohde]
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