Loving these: Arthur Wesley Dow prints

I have got a giant case of WANT:




Arthur Wesley Dow
Snowy Peak, Los Angeles, about 1912
Color linocut
3 9/16 x 5 13/16 in. [462-1]

This is one of a whole series of fantastic little woodcuts and linocuts in a current Hirschl and Adler exhibition. Inspired by Japanese Edo period woodblock prints, but simplified, at a smaller scale, more intimate. More hand-made feeling, you know? Also, I love that this is Los Angeles. I mean, really: L.A.? Used to look like that? Who knew? It wasn't even all that terribly long ago. And the shrubberies, they kind of look like centipedes, so I get this kind of visual bounce back & forth from alien-looking wormy things meandering across the landscape to these homely little chubby shrubberies.

Go, look at all of them:


Along Ipswich River: Color-prints by Arthur Wesley Dow

coolest new gadget

KeyLights- Keys and Flashlight

I am a girl who LOVES a gadget. My new favorite: the key with a little flashlight embedded in the head. It's designed so the button is right where your thumb would be when you're opening your door anyway. I just bought one yesterday and it's just freakin' genius. I wish I'd thought of it. Totally worth $3.50.



My other favorite gadgets are my tiny Leatherman Squirt that I keep on my keychain, and the credit-card sized Swiss Army doodad that has a wee knife, a little flashlight, tweezers, a ruler, a magnifying glass and some other nifty stuff I can't remember. It fits in your wallet.

The *perfect* art-bidness gadget would involve a tiny level, a tape measure, and a flashlight, plus a few assorted tools (knife, screwdriver, tweezers). I'm still looking for that one.

beautiful shoes

Manolo's Shoe Blog: Shoes, Fashion, Celebrity, and Manolo!

I am, by no means, a member of the pointy-toed-stiletto cult. In fact, I kind of hate cruel shoes. Until now, Manolos and Choos and the like seemed to me overpriced and unreasonably impractical. But these shoes, my god: they are beautiful. They aren't even dangerously high (3.5") for a formal shoe and properly fitted, a pointy toe isn't too cruel. I see now how it might, just *might* be possible to spend $800 on one pair of shoes, if one had that kind of spending power.