From Above.

Florian Beaudenon's Instant Life captures private moments in homes and work spaces from a birds-eye view: a woman in bed with her cats, a writer surrounded by Post-Its, a man sketching in a notebook. Says the artist, "[Each person has] agreed to share a hobby, a moment of intimacy that is important to them and in which everyone can recognize himself." What would yours look like?

Visit Florian Beaudenon's website, here. Found via My Modern Met.

POV: Presence.

POV ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. Each POV entry will include a photograph and a short reflection based on what’s pictured. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories. 

I spent a recent weekend at a cabin upstate with a group of friends (it was the same cabin, as it happens, that I wrote about last year, with the cicadas, and the indoor soccer, and the haunted house, and the 24 hours of perfect moments).

This year, we spent Sunday afternoon - which was clear and bright and warm - in the front yard, barefoot, half-asleep. The day before we'd worn sweaters; today, we found ourselves squinting in the sunlight, the grass parched beneath our feet. The sun burned our shoulders. Flocks of birds gathered en masse overhead. We stared. Awe-struck, we wondered when it had become summer.

Chutes & Ladders.

This house, located in northern Japan, looks a little like a giant ice cube from the outside. On the inside, it's a real-life version of Chutes and Ladders, with winding steel staircases and wooden ladders leading to various elevated (and un-fenced) floors. And while that play area is almost certainly a terrible accident waiting to happen, it also looks like a very nice place to read, or write, or hang a string of lights and eat dinner on the floor. See more, here.

Designed by Jun Igarashi Architects. Photos by Daici Ano. Found via Design Milk.

Three more links, just because:
-Death Valley in sunset colors.
-A mashed potato chocolate cake.
-Lastly, David Bowie on the uncertainty of the future: "I don't know where I'm going from here but I promise it won't be boring." Yes.

New POV post coming tomorrow. Until then!

Sofa Safari.

This week in weird and wonderful, photographer Jasmine Deporta's series Sofa Safari, which features models in a German upholstery shop, blending in with the furnishings. So very strange (in the very best way).

Visit Jasmine Deporta's website, here. Thanks, iGNANT. Happy Wednesday!

Dish Disco.

What better way to start the day than with a dance? For those too bleary-eyed to bust a move before breakfast, let ceramicist Lydia de la Pinera do the legwork - she'll add some can-can to your coffee, a little two-step to your toast. Shop more at La Malconttenta, here.

Mice Graffiti, etc.

I first posted about Brock Davis's broccoli treehouses and gummy bearskin rugs back in 2012. But this morning, after a long, sun-baked weekend that included fish tacos on the beach, long walks over many bridges, and a road trip in a fifty-year-old car held together with clamps and staples and knotted seat belts, I stumbled across this post on AnOther and thought I'd share, to extend the frivolity of the weekend just a few hours further.

Among Davis's imaginative Instagrams: a knife blade shark, an almond football, and the Minneapolis skyline carved in coffee sludge. The last one below is my favorite - the artist calls it "mice graffiti."

 

Related: best iPhone photography, artwork recreated using Play Doh, humans watching humans.

Also, while we're on the topic, how was your weekend? I hope summer's off to a wonderful start!

Happy Friday.

After a long and winding week that's been tumultuous for reasons good and bad and everything in between, buoyant words from Anais Nin: I walk ahead of myself in perpetual expectancy of miracles.

I love that. I had planned to post a POV this morning, but it's not quite ready yet - I'll have it up next week for sure, along with new stories on sunsets and chocolate cake and fashion inspired by couches. Wishing you a weekend full of many wonderful adventures in the meantime.

Photo via Emily Johnston's beautiful Instagram. Thanks, Petal and Plume.

Arbres Genealogiques.

Though I can't understand a word of her website, I'm absolutely blown away by French artist Maissa Toulet and her very unconventional family trees, which are a hodgepodge of tape and photographs and what appear to be real leaves. I like to think they represent the eccentricities in every family - and the beauty of their bigger pictures.

See more at Maissa Toulet's website, here. Thanks, As Bright As Day.

Additional (unrelated) curiosities, just because:
-The world's best sandwich.
-Experimental Music on Children's TV.
-"I believe in kindness. Also in mischief."

Alone Together.

In Andrew Lyman's series, Alone Together, the artist imagines stories of flirtation, friendship, and love between objects that - technically, anyway - don't have hearts: chimneys made of brick, white balloons, trays of sausage and rice, fingers dipped in milk. In his own words, he's "conjuring feelings of intimacy and solitude through manufactured and found interactions." Fascinating.

Visit Andrew Lyman's website, here.

Lick the Walls.

It's exceedingly difficult to make anything brown look attractive in photographs - I learned this the hard way while experimenting briefly with food photography. This room, at first glance, seems to be no exception. However, does your perception change when you're told the walls are made of chocolate?

In fact, artist Anya Gallaccio had a less-than-romantic vision when creating the installation, which is titled Stroke: "The desire to interact by picking, licking or stroking the chocolate-covered walls is almost compulsive. What is beautiful…becomes putrid and decayed."

Foulness of old and over-licked chocolate aside, I have to wonder also: will there be ants? 

Read more about Stroke, here.

A Day Past.

Lighthearted for Monday, (and just a day past Father's Day), a few snaps from an Instagram account that celebrates the sartorial brilliance of some of New York City's most stylish grandfathers. They've got covetable closets and, apparently, command of the city - of the gentleman with the cane three photos down, Instagram-er Christina Belchere writes, "Like 7 cabs stopped for him."

See more at FashionGrandpas, here. Thanks, MNChic. Happy Monday.

C'etait une nuit.

Bewitching words from Brigitte Bardot to start the weekend: 

"What was the happiest day of your life?" 

"It was a night."

I'll be back next week with stories about chocolate, and white balloons, and a new POV. Three links in the meantime:
-Sleep habits of geniuses.
-The perfect treehouse.
-Biscuit doughnuts. (Also, doughnuts and the people who look like them.) 

Have a very, very sweet one. 

In Confidence.

I imagine these images by photographer Anna Ladd would strike a chord with anyone who's shared something personal on a blog or to a social media audience. Part of a series called Things I Told the Internet, But Didn't Tell My Mom, each image shows a direct quote from writing Anna's posted online "but never talked about in person."

With my POV series, I've often wondered who's out there reading: friends? Strangers? People who I've met randomly in coffee shops and on street corners, who find my site later? It's mind-boggling sometimes to think of sharing such personal material with people I don't know in real life - but it's liberating, too, and more rewarding than I could possibly have imagined. (So thank you, again, for reading.)

Found via Ignant. Happy Thursday!