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Before flying off to America, I had the good fortune to attend the grand re-opening of the Museum of Childhood in London. My brother-in-law, architect Peter St. John, was the force behind the project, and the opening was great fun for kids and adults alike.
One of the highlights was the exhibit celebrating Miffy, the lovable forever young bunny created in 1956 by the Dutch painter and illustrator Dick Bruna. Bruna's gorgeously simple, vibrantly-hued stories have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 80 million copies worldwide. His work has also appeared on postage stamps, as well as on posters for the Red Cross and Amnesty International.
What makes Bruna's work so glorious is the way he simply does more with less, whether he's drawing a house, a pig, a bear, a rabbit, or anything in between. We could each learn a lesson or two from that ethos.
The exhibit also featured plenty of other wonderful graphics from the era. Some of my favorites:
Happy birthday to Miffy, and happy holidays to each of you out there in blogland. I hope your time with friends and family is playful, peaceful, and filled with a bit of child-like wonder.
See you after Christmas.
My posting is a bit sporadic now as I'm officially in the thick of the lounging about that is synonymous with spending the holidays at my parents' house in New Mexico. Turning on the computer seems somehow anathema to all that is personal down time.
I did manage, however, to finally try out freezer paper stencilling just before I got on the plane. I am in love! Such an easy project - these leaves took me all of about 20 minutes from drawing to completed stencil.
Now I'm on the hunt for some inexpensive, perfectly-shaped (you know how important that is!) T-shirts, both for myself and for my daughter. Hope to stock up while in the US as clothing (and fabric - as I discovered yesterday - pics to come) is practically free. :)
(image from "How to use Furoshiki")
I consider myself an eco-friendly gal (I compost my food scraps, cycle throughout London instead of driving a car, and buy about 90% of my food locally from organic UK farmers). Like many people, I despise the plastic shopping bags that breed in your kitchen when you turn your back for an instant.
So I was pleased to read on Treehugger (by way of Lifehacker, another of my faves) about the Japanese "furoshiki," or "cloth for the bath," which was apparently first used in the 14th century as a way to wrap one's clothes while taking a public bath.
Japan is also engulfed by those horrible plastic shopping bags. So Yuriko Koike, Japan's Minister of the Environment, is spearheading a push to bring back the furoshiki. She's released her version, a printed floral fabric number made from recycled PET bottles. (On a side note, I was shocked to find out recently the toll that PET bottles - the kind women carry their 8-glasses-of-H2O-a-day quota in - take on the environment. Americans use 4 million plastic bottles every hour, yet only one-quarter of them get recycled).
There are plenty of other furoshiki designs out there, but just imagine what crafty women could create! Basically, you just neeed a large square of fabric. Finish the edges (and perhaps attach a self-pocket), fold up the fabric and keep it in your bag, and SHAZAM! You may never need a plastic bag again.
OK, so who's in?
I'm heading out for the holidays tomorrow. Two weeks of glorious doing nothing, peppered with caroling in the town square, enjoying the magic that is Christmas eve luminaria (miles of tiny candles in brown paper sacks will glow on neighborhood streets), and getting my fill of the expat goodies (such as Annie's cheddar bunnies) that are woefully unavailable to me most of the year.
With the end of the year in close proximity, naturally I've turned all reflective. The big thoughts? Taking stock of 2006 and looking ahead to 2007.
Generally, I'm not one to place much weight on the annual calendar shift, but this impending changeover has me feeling particularly ripe with possibillity.
Two months ago, I felt poised on a precipice - actively resisting, fearing, even dreading that feeling of not-knowing-what's-next. Today, I'm still in that in-between stage, but today, it feels okay, comfortable, and at times even exhilarating. I'm fascinated to find out what's next.
Someone recently shared with me the idea that one's sphere of knowledge comprises three basic areas (stick with me on this one as it's a bit of a mental tongue-twister):
1) the things you know
2) the things you don't know - these are the ones you know you don't know
3) the things you don't know - these are the ones that you don't know you don't know
It's that third one that is the most intriguing, especially when you're beginning to make changes and are moving beyond your personal comfort zone. Lots of things begin to shift subtly, unexpectedly.
What about you? Do you welcome the state of "unknowingness" that takes place before real change? Or does it scare the bejeezus out of you? Or a bit of both? (Believe me, I move between all three!)
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Now, on to the photos. Two lovely things waited in my mailbox when I arrived at the office this morning. One was a fat package of fabrics an eBay seller (the fabric above is a Kaffe Fassett design; I've posted a few other fabric pics in my Flickr account).
The other package? A pair of gorgeous winter-y festive Polaroid prints - a kind gift from the super-talented Maditi. (Thank you thank you!)
OK, that's it. . .after looking at those photos, I'm off to make a cup of chai.
I finally had a few moments last night to finish my very first toy creation.
Blogland, meet Millie the Monkey.
When I look at Millie, I see the wonky bit here, the not-so-perfect part there, the gee-that-looks-really bad bit.
But all my mini-misgivings were immediately eclipsed by the look in my daughter's eyes last night when she realized that the fabric she chose was now A DRESS and that the little monkey (which she named Millie) now belonged to HER.
To little R., Millie is perfect. Plus, the sun is shining in London today. And all of my pre-holiday deadlines are finished.
And really, when you think about it, life doesn't get much better than that.
I'm a big fan of crayons. As a child, some of my greatest thrills came upon receiving a new box. I loved the pristine, unbroken tips within, the unblemished paper wrapping surrounding the waxy sticks, the rainbow of colours with names to match. Now that I'm older, I still adore them - and enjoy giving them to my daughter. (And borrowing them for some adult play!).
Of course, I'm not the only one. Over the weekend, I happened upon the work by the very talented Pete Goldlust, a mixed media artist whose work spans a variety of media, including children's arts-and-crafts materials.
Each of Goldlust's creations, which range from wall installations to sculptures, is breathtaking, but I was particularly drawn to these whimsical carved crayon sculptures - and to his overarching artistic sensibility. "A sense of play is key to each of [my] creative strategies," he writes on his web site. Play on, I say.
Mason Cooley, U.S. aphorist
