Image via Wikipedia Mark Frauenfelder is a man of many talents: Founded bOING bOING, a zine in 1988 with partner/wife, Carla Sinclair bOING bOING beget BoingBoing.net in 1995 as a basic website which became a weblog in 2000 Was an editor at Wired in the 90s Has published several books Is editor-in-chief of MAKE Magazine And as part of the research for his latest book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World, Frauenfelder can add a few more: cigar box luthier, chicken coop constructor, and espresso machine modder. Here is an interview with Reason.TV to discuss the new book and the relevance of doing-it-yourself in a world of point-and-click:

The Museum of Arts and Design in New York presents an exhibit entitled, “Dead or Alive”: He kills the cockroaches with a spray, pops them into a jar, takes them back to his studio in Florida, and then puts their parts to work in his art. He glues their legs together into long, lacy cylinders that look like giant larval casings. He arranges their wings into medically precise images of a human skull, foot bones and hand bones, all scaled to his own head and appendages. Mr. Peña likes the medium of cockroach aesthetically, the way he can use the different tones in the wings as his palette to convey light and shadow. He likes it metaphorically, how we are disgusted by something with which we have so much in common — the same taste in foods, the same easy adaptability to every possible niche. “Cockroaches are a witness to [Continue Reading...]

CSS is a language that is used to provide styling to webpages. It is quite useful in that it separates the presentation or display of content from the content itself. Beyond that description it would be difficult for me to succinctly describe how CSS works. I got into learning about CSS after being exposed to the work of Eric Meyers. Eric was pushing the boundaries of CSS more than a decade ago by creating some very beautiful and intriguing designs all through HTML/XHTML and CSS. But what Mr. DeSandro has done is beyond comprehension – he has created a typeface using CSS. Practical? No. Amazing? Yes. This is like a Rube Goldberg approach to web design. Curtis is the name I’ve given for a family of geometric sans-serif fonts currently in development. Other incarnations exist as Fontstructions: Curtis Heavy and Curtis Pixel 14. This version takes form in CSS. All [Continue Reading...]

To me, this is a lot like the jazz tradition I grew up in – you take a great idea, add a little, take away a little, and make it your own. I think this is just a great example of one artist riffing on another artist’s work. Sometimes people in the art world are a tad uptight, methinks… Proposal for a Landscaped Cosmos, by Sam Leach. Australia is in the grip of another art scandal. This year’s Wynne prize of A$25,000 (£15,000) for “the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours” has been awarded to Proposal for a Landscaped Cosmos by Sam Leach. Leach has freely confessed that his painting is derived from Adam Pynacker’s Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake, painted c1660, and now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Leach has never seen the original; he found the picture online. Shock and horror [Continue Reading...]

I really like the idea of artists making pieces that are somewhat tailored to a specific person’s preference (color, style). My wife has offered to to this as well for family and friends (you can find her photography at 77greenballoons.com). The article below piqued my interest in part because of something Natasha Wescoat posted yesterday on Twitter (@natasha), offering the opportunity to purchase a custom piece. By the way, Natasha’s got a new online store up at Big Cartel and it looks great. Modern art shouldn’t be about sacrificing style, quality or originality. One online community of artists is painting an opportunity that’s well worth a look. Hampshire, United Kingdom, 1st April 2010 – For the modern home today there’s no doubt at all that modern art can help make a dramatic statement of style, create a real focal point or talking point, and help to tie together a theme [Continue Reading...]

Today I turned 33. I wasn’t quite sure how the day was going to turn out. I did have the day off of work, which I needed and appreciated. I woke up to my beautiful wife and presents from her and the kids. A new pair of Birkenstocks (my last pair was pretty much toast after a can of paint fell out the back of the Jeep and spilled everywhere) and a handmade ceramic skull decorated in El Dia de los Muertos style. There was recently roasted/freshly ground coffee from Caffe Calabria and a trip to Legoland in the works. We were originally planning to go to Disneyland to take advantage of the free admission on your birthday deal, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Two years ago, a co-worker gave me free tickets to Legoland and we decided to use them. A stop at the donut shop for [Continue Reading...]