Mosaic Artist Jeffrey Bale

...s and work. Bale captures what I think is missing in a lot of contemporary art and landscape design, a sense of the transcendent and the search for what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “fullness”. Our gardens and cities could benefit from many more spaces like the labyrinth portrayed in this short mini-doc. Best of all, in the video, Bale demonstrates how he makes his mosaics. Bale has no trade secrets. He wants us all to participate in creating...

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How to polish your silver effortlessly–with Science!

...y’re so perfect it’s clear they’ve never been used. These may have been a part of my grandmother’s wedding trousseau, or maybe even my great-grandmother’s. But whoever gathered them together so carefully, they never thought any dinner party in their entire life was special enough to use them. Well, this attitude ends with me. Erik and I don’t have kids, and we’ve hit middle age, so I’m burning the bridges behind us. Everything must be used. No mor...

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Romanesco broccoli cameo lights up Star Wars film

...h food, so it’s interesting that the film makers decided to include it as part of the scenery. The only other edible in the movie is special effect-based alien food–I won’t be spoilery and say any more about that. The Star Wars world isn’t posited as our future world, as the Star Trek world is–it’s a mythic world, somewhere long ago and far away. I doubt we’d ever see Han Solo noshing on a hot dog, for instance, whereas I can totally imagine Kirk...

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Our Amazon Problem

...n noted that when a new technology takes over, what it replaces becomes an art form. I have a sense that, with so much time devoted to staring at screens, people will increasingly want the peace and focus that comes with holding a beautiful book in one’s hands. This is where you can help by answering, in the comments, a few questions I have: If we were to start self-publishing short how-to books would you want them in an inexpensive ebook format o...

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Learn to Spin!

...r friend Anne Schwartz is teaching some classes this month at the Keystone Art Space on San Fernando Road. In this fun two-hour class you will learn the basics of spinning yarn on a drop spindle, and will receive your own spindle and fiber to keep! This is a great way to start spinning because you’ll learn the basics – drafting fiber, adding twist and plying yarn – in a way that can be easily controlled, and using an inexpensive tool! Even if your...

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