my san francisco home

Took a month to get everything all organized and decorated.

Another month to get the pictures up.

Just in case anyone out there still reads personal blogs, here's a peek into my teeny tiny studio in the city. It's about 250 square feet, less than half the size of my beloved home of 18 months in Palo Alto, but it's all the space I need, plus a 25-minute walk from the nephews and around the corner from great restaurants & parks, my SF surrogate parents, and all the mass transit vehicles I could ever want. Oh, and there's a huge avocado tree in the backyard. For reals.

Special credits go to: Ikea (furniture), Brady (moving incl. furniture dissembling & rebuilding), Claire (that awesome painting hanging on the wall), Blik (wall decals), Hortica (my very first houseplant), The Container Store (everything else. You should have seen me coming home on the Muni with my burden of 2 ginormous bags full of boxes, crates, drawer organizers, hanging shelves, and all manner of other, uh, containers).

Who wants to come visit? If I move my bike into the hall closet, there's totally enough floor space for my air mattress, I swear.

fine twined linens

My mother has given me many things, including:

                       these legs                                      and good taste in textile design

also,                 these sweet Pumas                         and this gorgeous new duvet cover

which were exactly what I wanted for my birthday.

Plus, she threw in the matching shams and coordinating sheets, AND two surprises:

How adorable is that?

Not to mention a plethora of throw pillows (she made the black&white covers herself).

Thanks, Mom!

(Now it's about time for me to crawl into that stylish bed. 'Night!)

spotted at whole foods last night

Sometimes, when I am at the grocery store at night, I see things that amuse me enough that I must record them.

Remember the Coca Puffs in Utah? Well, here in California I've found a milk substitute called Hemp Dream. Pour those two into a bowl, and that's part of your complete breakfast trip. 

I know, hemp itself isn't a drug. 

Neither is coca. 

I'm just having fun. As were, apparently, the Hemp Dream package designers:

Subtle, yet effective.

28: vine

I spent the afternoon in Napa.

Yes, a day in wine country. And I don't drink. 

I inhaled the volatile esters of some nice fruity cabernets and for once in my life the smell of alcohol didn't make me physically ill. As my friend tasted and compared the 2003, 2002, and 1999 vintages, I read the lovely, sometimes fanciful descriptions of the different varieties, one of which was purportedly "opulently structured." 

We got to see the Quixote winery, the whimsical Hundertwasser's last design. (I mentioned the Austrian architect once before.)

The landscape in Napa county is stunning: all that greenery and the rows of old-growth vines rolling by, the occasional babbling brook, and dramatic open skies. Plus, wildflower season is coming on, so a rainbow of poppies and my favorite yellow daffodils were popping up along the roadside. And the air is so clean and refreshing. The word idyllic comes to mind. So does fantasyland.

As my friend made his purchases, I checked out the labels for design inspiration. Eponymous is nice, as is Blackbird. And there was another one that I made a mental note of, but I've forgotten it already. This is why I usually write things down.

As we drove back toward the city, the odd little world of monoculture and almost surreal natural and societal environment melted away behind us. And yet I know that somehow it still exists. As do a lot of other microcosms that I have little to no contact with in daily life. In some ways, it's not really that small of a world, after all.

(all photos mine, of quixote winery)

14: respiration

I spent the day in San Francisco.

It was wonderful just to breathe in the energy of the city. Also, I got to see some cool art.

Destination: San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design. 

An out-of-town friend tipped me off to the San Francisco Graphic Design exhibition through a review she had found somewhere on the interwebs. I didn't even know the museum existed until a few days ago. Now enlightened and intrigued, I decided to check it out. It's a small venue, tucked away in the shopping district downtown, near the Academy of Art University. There were plenty of interesting things to see in the two rooms and a hallway, and those of you who know anything about my museuming style will likely agree that a small gallery is healthy for me. I devour museum exhibits. And not in the ravenous, wolfing-down sense. I savor every teeny tiny bite and let the flavor linger as long as possible.

The show features the work of a handful of local designers, ranging from Michael Schwab's iconic Golden Gate National Parks posters to Barbara Vick's logos that you'll see branding many familiar products in the grocery store, Chen Design's eco-friendly tags for North Face to MINE's (that apparent combination of possessives makes me somewhat uncomfortable)  everything is ok caution tape.

Walter Landor (founder of the prolific Landor Associates) is credited in the current exhibition with the statement "Good design is friendly. It's nice to have around." The 'friendly' designs on display today got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could make pretty things that are nice to have around, too. 

So that's the inspiration. Concerning the next step in the respiration cycle, well, I guess it's my turn. We'll see what I can come up with.

(photo credit: me)

my new favorite architect, or, why i should start practicing german again

It all started with this posting on Google Sightseeing: an aerial photo of what turned out to be my new favorite building. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure that I had a favorite building before. But I do now.) The roof takes an unusual shape: a long, curving incline; and it also happens to be green, planted with maple, beech, and lime trees. That's cool enough, and it also explains the building's name, Waldspirale: Wald is German for forest; spirale, as you will have guessed, refers to the spiral shape.

But then! Then I saw this:

(click photo to link to original flickr source)

What splendid craft! What controlled exuberance! What a glorious use of color! Is it...? Could it be...? I think I'm in love.

Waldspirale is an apartment building in Darmstadt, Germany, and for its design we may thank the late Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. No, I'm not making that up. Friedrich Stowasser was born in Vienna on this day in 1928, and he adopted a rather more colorful moniker, which translates (rather clunkily) into English as Peace-empire Rainy-day Dark-colored Hundred-water.

Here's another sample of the prolific artist's work:


(click photo to link to original flickr source)

That's the Hundertwasserhaus in Plochingen, Germany. It's not my new favorite, but it certainly has its merits. (Does it remind anyone else of the Spanish missions in California?)

So. If I suddenly take off and move to Germany, you'll have a pretty good idea as to where to find me.


Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Herr Hundertwasser. Sie lebt noch, im seiner Kunst. Danke.

for the 21st-century nomad

The N55 Walking House is a compact, solar- and wind-powered "modular living system" that can walk across any terrain. The idea is to allow people--and their homes--to escape rising flood waters. (Found via WebEcoist.)



Anybody else think of Howl's Moving Castle?

knock-knock

just a couple of reasons why I take my camera with me everywhere:


[potrero hill, san francisco]

[stanford ave, palo alto]

what i have been doing for the past couple of weeks

adobe creative suite 3 design standard for mac: $219
five-pound bag of equal exchange organic hot chocolate mix: $35
ikea light fixtures and lightbulbs: $70
sofa and loveseat slipcovers: $60
sweatshirt and sweatpants: $15

being distracted from other worries that i tend to hyperbolate by whiling away the hours learning new skills and developing a creative product that i can proudly claim: priceless