There’s a great new effort underway to document the everyday fabricators, makers, crafters, and artists at the heart of today’s DIY movement. Its called Makeshift Magazine: A Journal of Hidden Creativity and their first issue is out. If you support their launch by contributing to their Kickstarter campaign, you’ll get a copy! While the magazine [...]

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day with Jock Gill of Pellet Futures. I wanted to learn more about his ideas to use biomass to produce charcoal as a by-product of open-flame cooking. When most of us think about grilling, we’re thinking about the use of charcoal. When we think about producing charcoal, [...]

I’ve got to confess a real enjoyment of sepia-toned, shadow-suffused and steam-filled imagery of the Victorian period. There’s a rich mystery locked up in the works of the period – from the early greats like Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and HG Wells to contemporary conjurers like China Mieville, William Gibson, and possibly even Neal Stephenson [...]

A friend recently asked if I could make a “cat sarcophagus” for her daughter’s upcoming eighth birthday party. Along with the proposal she included a snapshot of a “cat mummy”  from London. Coincidentally, a few months prior, National Geographic had a cover issue dedicated to pet mummies of ancient Egypt, which my family had loved. So plenty [...]

One of the delights in taking a meander to – and through – a good antique or salvage shop is the discovery of once functional objects that have been shorn, busted, unmade and unusable. Yet a glimmer of their former utility is there – something to suggest that it should, or once would, do something. [...]

A friend recently asked if I could make a “cat sarcophagus” for her daughter’s upcoming eighth birthday party. Along with the proposal she included a snapshot of a “cat mummy” from London. Coincidentally, a few months prior, National Geographic had a cover issue dedicated to pet mummies of ancient Egypt, which my family had loved. [...]

This summer the Africa-India Technology Institute (AITI) in Accra, Ghana will host Maker Faire Africa, a two-day showcase of African ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Modeled on the popular Maker Faire format developed in the U.S. by Make Magazine and O’Reilly media, the festival will include exhibitions of functional devices invented locally, artwork derived from found objects [...]

I sure would like to be in New Orleans Saturday when Prospect.1 New Orleans opens in the Lower Ninth Ward and throughout the city. Its going to be, “the largest exhibition of contemporary art” in the U.S. – ever. Well, that’s according to the New York Times, with a bit of hedging with a “billed [...]

Great looking announcement that was passed along today. The sponsors, PBS and the creators of the television show Design Squad, are looking for some sport. Hook up with some yung’uns and pitch in – looks like fun! Click here to download the Trash to Treasure Flyer

While in New York recently for a “Greening the Arts” symposium [see below], I had the very good fortune to meet an artist, preservationist, and self-described “recycling fanatic” Victoria Romanoff. Touring her converted firestation – which serves as her home, studio, and office – I was struck by how full and well-lived her life is, [...]

My buddy Ward Joyce, by day a gifted architect, is working on something with his jewelry-making pal that I never thought would work: bicycle sculpture. In their inimitable way though they’ve brought a great conceptual edge to an otherwise whimsical public art project. Here’s an excerpt from coverage in our local paper: MONTPELIER – Moving [...]