creativity + art + design articles

the best list ever, by Danielle: vol. 1

The best of anything and everything. Random fantastic stuff that left an impression on my frontal lobe and softened heart. Do your own list. Do it here if you fancy, we've got the time and space. "The Best List Ever, by [insert your name]: Vol. 1. It'll make you simmer with sweet memories and proof of excellence. Here we go. This is gonna feel goood.

MY BEST LIST EVER. 100% adored. In no particular order.

1. The Missing Piece Meets The Big O, by Shel Silverstien. The most elegant and charming description of human relationships. Heartbreaking, really. It's my favourite wedding gift to give.
2. Wim Wenders', Wings of Desire and Far Away So Close. Made me want to fall in love, fly, move to Berlin, french-kiss Lou Reed, and talk to my angels.




3. Leonard Cohen at the Palo Solari in Santa Fe. Circa '95. Under the stars. A hot night. Angelic backup singers. Oozing the most Zen-Let's-All-Make-Love-Right-Now vibe humanly possible. Religious.
4. Dip big strawberries in sour-cream, and then dip it into brown sugar. Divine. Great picnic treat.
5. Pangea Organics Japanese Matcha Tea with Acai & Goji Berry Facial Mask. Incredible product from one of the most eco-progressive beauty companies, ever.
6. WordPress. There's a reason why Google bought it.
7. The Arlington Institute's FutureEdition. Best aggregation of news in global trends and outliers.
8. Pecha Kucha Night speaking events. 20 slides. 20 seconds each to talk about whatever inspires you (or me). Brilliant format.
9. Honey Beeswax Candles. I'm fanatical about them. They clean the air, are thus merciful on your lungs, and last forever. I order mine from an equally fanatical craftsman in a small town in Ontario.
10. Tweezermans.
11. Krishnamurti. Total Freedom.
12. Allan Watts. Beyond Theology.
13. Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk. How schools kill creativity. Hilarious and profound.
14. Soul centering sessions with Navjit Kandola.
15. Project jamming with Dyana Valentine.
16. The lavender milk chocolate sauce on Belgian waffles at Medina Cafe, Vancouver.
17. Jim Morrison's An American Prayer.
18. Maya Angelou speaking on stage in San Francisco. Proud poetic power personified.
19. Cheryl Sorg's text art. Got me one this year.
20. Patricia Larsen's abstract paintings. Got me one last year.
21. That time with S. in the cabin, doing that thing S. does so well.
22. Silk Concept duvets. Lux sleepies, no more cold feet, eco-kind.
23. Little Miss Sunshine.





24. Eminence Organics Yam & Pumpkin Enzyme Peel. Indispensable for ye ol' skin glow. Use it twice a week.
25. Paper Mate Medium Point blue pens. I've tried fancy fountain pens, mechanical pencils that made me look designy-cool. But it's the good n' cheapies that do the trick.
26. Your Sex is on Fire, Kings of Leon
27. Red Hot Chili Pepper's Stadium Arcadium. If you don't love this double CD, I'm not sure that we can be friends.
28. Rilke! "I want to unfold, for where I am folded, there I am a lie."
29. Rumi...Rumi...my love. "You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?"
30. Mary Oliver, sistah. "What will you do with your one wild and precious life?"
31. This advice from a mentor when it all fell apart: Know your rights.
32. Anthropolgie
33. Bella Cucina's Artichoke Lemon Pesto. It even made Oprah's list. (Tho' my list is so much juicer, don't you agree?)
34. Beauty, by John O' Donohue. Anything by John O'Donohue, really.
35. Hallelujah, as sung by kd lang, whom I think is one of the most masterful song interpreters ever. This performance makes me want to pull out all the stops in my life. And then be incredibly modest about it.




36. Pet insurance. Just get it.
37. Ten Thousand Waves. Santa Fe, NM. Heaven, hot tubs, and Indian oil in the hills. Heav-en.
38. The best moment with my kid, ever. We're eating chocolate cones outside an ice cream parlor at dusk. Me: "So, pookie, what's it like being alive?" The Kid (without missing a beat): "Oh mama! It's AAA-MAZ-ing! If I were a telephone, I'd be ringin' all the time!"

... to be continued ...

 

burning questions with kelly diels: cleavage + faith

Have you seen Kelly Diels' cleavage? It's deep. She writes with rapier wit and overflowing love, about "everything we all want more of: sex, money, and meaning." And feminism. And Malcolm Gladwell. Yep. She's hot.

I read everything she writes. EVERYTHING, honey.

1. What’s your super hero name? (You have one. To discover it, stand with your legs apart and hands on your hips, tits up and eyes to the sky. It’ll come to you. FYI, Mine is Agent Now, which in French translates to L’Agent Maintenent. Adorable n'est pas?)

Madame Passionista. I wear a chain skirt strung with laptop keys and knee high - hell, thigh-high - boots that are not made for walking. My primary super power is the blazing epistle of righteousness and my secondary one is unmentionable in certain circles but makes me very, very popular.

2. What's the best advice you've been given in terms of writing or creativity?

Believe.

3. What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?

That I am loved.

4. What global policy, credo, practice or law would you like to decree?

This is heavy: an end to sexual abuse in all forms.

5. What book(s) are you always telling people to read?

Freakonomics. I freaking love it. I love work that uses old tools - like economic theory and modeling - in new and quirky ways. I also adore the way my future husband, Malcolm Gladwell, spins essays into intellectual whodunnits.

But my favourite book of all time is To Kill A Mocking Bird.

6. I’m going to give you a word. Tell me what the first thing that comes to mind when you read it… Ready? The word is: instigate.

Shit disturber. My girls. Myself. Provocateur.

7. What question are you currently living?

Faith? Faith. It is new to me. Faith in myself, faith in the universe, faith in the leap and the fall, faith in those that love me and those who don't, faith in my instincts - I'm sidling up to faith.

Bonus Q: Before we go, Tina Turner asked me to ask you: Kelly, What's love got to do with it, got to do with it?

Oh, EVERYTHING, honey.

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FIND KELLY DIELS
Cleavage.com
Twitter: @kellydiels
Facebook

 

what’s the best change you made to the place you live?

I'm habitual Purger of Stuff. Can't stand clutter. Nic nacs give me hives. Someone once critically described my living room as "austere" and I glowed with pride. So happy change for me usually comes from getting crap out the door. Dropping a bag of clothes off at Value Village, giving a chair away to a new university student, piling piles into the recycling bin = euphoria!

The best changes I made this year to my place:

• downloaded 400+ CDs onto MAC/iPod, bought small docking speakers, and sold/gave away said CDs and mammoth old stereo system - including fake wood speakers that always made me feel like a cheap 70's house wife.
• sold plushy couch and got my dream sofa: a danish day bed with a trundle. Had it recovered in a mocha with blue fleck cotton/velvet.
• put some twinkly lights in the bedroom.
• found my favorite new incense from Ten Thousand Villages, which smells like ancient India.
• bought a new white desk unit.
• stopped burning candles with paraffin in them (cough cough, hack hack.)
• hung two of my favorite pieces from text artist, Cheryl Sorg.

 

best of 2009: meet ups, workshops, and blog pow

Best night out: September 30. Tweetup at the Thom Bar, SOHO NYC. Hot, high-minded women in NYC, lounging and laughing. I mean, really. In the red tent that night was, Bindu, power Kate, Rochelle the inspired dancer, the When I Grow Up Coach, a Bronx Beauty, an insecure Ivy Leaguer, a lawyer come entrepreneur, a pole dancing techie, Step Up's Selena, and other new and familiar femmes. The highlight had to do a very animated conversation about clits and literature. Not in that order.

Best workshop or conference: Gail Larsen. Transformational Speaking. Two weeks ago. Runner up: Patty Digh and David Robinson's tele-seminar, Playing With Blocks.

Best blog find of the year: Cleavage, from Kelly Diels.

 

best article of 2009?

My pick: Bindu Wiles' Unexpected Broken Heart. A Buddhist in Brooklyn on opening your heart and minding your manners.

 

holiday cards: when you care enough to be hip

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza...I opt for "Happy New Year." That covers just about everyone with a sprinkle of inspiration. And that was the inspiration behind my "Ponder the beauty of possibility" note card.

In the festive spirit, you can now buy a 10 pack of the Possibility note cards for your holiday card list ($34.) The back is left blank for your message. The card stock is high-quality heavy weight luscious. The sentiment works for your freakiest friends and your faithful granny.

Click here to place your orders.

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Want to become an affiliate e-seller or store front retailer of these bold, lovely hot-sellers? Hot damn! Interested in bulk purchases for fund-raising items? Good thinking! Email me directly for details: [email protected]

 

lady gaga and your dreams come true

{if reading by email, click title to view video}

About four years after Stefani Germanotta was performing unplugged at NYU, she picked up a Grammy and started a sold out world concert tour, as Lady Gaga. A lot can happen in a short time.

What does Lady Gaga have to do with your life intention? She’s the poster chicka for swift success. Not overnight success (she started playing piano at age four, she opened up for New Kids on the Block, she got dropped by her first record label.) But swift success. Swift, like momentum and velocity. Swift, like one US presidential term, the time until your baby starts pre-school, the time it takes for you to go through two cell-phones.

For anyone who is dreaming, striving, believing, aiming, add this to your arsenal of faith n' sweat: you need to believe in speed.

When you believe that things can happen quickly for you, you’re adding another level of creative input into your life script.

This is a creative exercise (as in creating your reality,) suspend these notions: you’ve got to pay your dues, it’s all in the timing, one step at a time, don’t get ahead of yourself, good things come to those who wait.

Now, believe in speed. Imagine that within about four years you could have what you’re striving for, and much much more. Think about everything amazing that could be happening for you just one year from today ... then quadruple the amazingness. Think bigger. Imagine huge. Ponder colossal. Feel the zoom in your cells. Meditate on the feeling of arriving.

What happens when certain, big, success feels nearer to you? Your projected amazing future begins to rub off on you. You exhibit successful tendencies, you make more confident choices, you stick your chin out, and you keep your stamina up. You get in front of time. You start thinking like a star. Rising. Faster.

THE EVOLUTION OF GAGA

 

burning questions with the communicatrix: from the hip, to the heart

Without exaggeration I can report that some of the Communicatrix's writing has made me laugh so hard that I snortled - in front of people. Her poetry, which she publishes every Thursday, has made me cry multiple times. And she does these Full Monty Makeover ass-kicking assessments for websites, to which I'd like to send 77% of the world wide web - so many could use her high-sensibility whippin's.

Colleen Wainwright's approach to creativity and marketing is like Buddhist-meets-Ninja-meets-BareNaked Ladies, with a lil' Joni Mitchell thrown in. Just when you're all charmed by her sass, she'll throw out some cosmic truth that makes you go "yeah, true dat!" So lean in and listen up. The Communicatrix never fails to say precisely what she means and make you love her for it.

1. What's the dumbest thing that you used to believe?

You will laugh long and hard—and I will join you in this long, hard belly laugh, O Sister of Lessons Hard-Won—but I used to believe that if I was just a good girl and worked hard, everything would be fine.

I cannot tell you how many stupid, sorry years I wasted, not to mention how many opportunities I probably let slip through my fingers, by not Going For It and/or believing in the Limo Shortcut to Success. (more...)

 

burning questions with susannah conway: beauty that heals

Susannah Conway reminds me of a hand painted tea cup: worn with love, cherished, elegant but wide open. Soothing. Something/someone you'd want to spend quality time with...talking about beauty and pop culture, and what it means to really notice your life. And what it means to create beauty and to be obsessed with that creating.

Susannah is happily afflicted with Polaphrenia, [noun, a clinical obsession with Polaroid film and cameras, often accompanied by an inability to control oneself when faced with a large stash of expired 600 film and a sunny day.] She is a photographer, a collector of moments, a seeker, and the creator of the incredibly popular "Unraveling" e-Course. And she is the first video interview on WhiteHotTruth.com, captured on film, beautifully. Naturally.

The next session of Susannah's e-course, Unravelling: Ways of Seeing My Self will be enrolling on Tuesday December 1st. The actual class begins on Monday January 4th and will definitely help to banish any January blues! The course will run for 8 weeks and the fee is £80 (British pounds). Every e-course Susannah offers sells out the day of enrollment, usually within two hours of being announced. Need I say more?

Find Susannah
Unravelling E-Course
SusannahConway.com
Twitter: @photobird
Facebook

Susannah is running a "My Creative Life" interview with me on her beautiful blog. Tune in, she asks grrreat questions.

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send papery love: my big, bold lovely note cards

 

the psychedelics of strategic planning

The last time I did mushrooms, I was on my honeymoon. They were a wedding gift. (We have the best friends.) And the last time I dropped acid I was wearing shoulder pads and listening to The Flock of Seagulls. It's been a while. But since then, I've learned to alter my state, unassisted, and heighten my possibilities.

If you've done any psychedelic drugs you'll know that the "best" trips leave you expanded. You get a backstage pass to the Super Hero Concert of Life and you feel pretty freaking invincible. You see yourself in new shades and shapes. You score some privileged information. You come back to Earth with your groove on.

Wouldn't it be great to feel that mighty when you were mapping out your New Year, or writing your business plan? Wouldn't it be invigorating if, as you strategized, you really believed that anything was possible? That's the high of dreams. The divine stretch. Blue sky'ing. And it's essential to dynamic, robust strategies.

If you want a vital outcome, you need vitalized input. You gotta dance, shake it up, go extreme, hollah back and then come back to center where both possibility and pragmatism synergize. You've got to cross the line and get new information. That's why I ask some of my clients, "Look, if you, like dropped acid and wrote your business plan, what would it look like?" Works every time.

HOW TO UNLEASH YOUR STRATEGIC PLANNING POWER

1. The trip-prep: Analyze your dream fatigue. Sometimes you just get worn out from thinking big - especially entrepreneurs. Years of hard work, mid-course corrections, failures that lead to success, success that leads to failures. I've been there. After I left the company I co-founded last year, I could hardly bear to think about profit margins and wheeling new, big deals. I just wanted to write sutras and make soup. But dream fatigue will lift when you fully admit to it. Take stock, integrate your lessons - your new facts - and then move on, wiser for the wear. You simply cannot stop dreaming. You must, you must, dream a new dream.

2. Dream extreme. Loosen up. Unleash. Go wild. BE IMPRACTICAL. Get out of your box and stomp on it. Try egomania on for size. The phone rings. It's Oprah. Her staff have been reading your blog and they want to fly you to Chicago. Buddy in the cafe overhears you talking about your business plan and wouldn't you know it, he's a Venture Capitalist looking to unload some coin before the tax season ends. Your product is flying off the shelves. Bestseller. Soul mate. Awards. Radiance. Empire. The cover of Fast Company. TED Talks. Adulation. Overnight success. Euphoria.

FEEL THE HIGH OF THE EXTREME DREAM. Close your eyes and let your cells plump up with it. You should be peaking right about now.

3. While you're still tripping, imagine hanging with the Super Heroes of your industry. Assume that you are their contemporary. Ask for their grittiest stories and advice. Jam. Observe. Tell them your ideas, give them your pitch, sing them your song. Pay close attention to how they respond.

4. Come back to earth. Map out your plan - exactly from where you are. You may have found some courage or sagacity on the other side of the extreme dream. You may have imagined new possibilities. You may be thinking waaay bigger, or maybe much smaller, more precise. Either way, you'll know what super powers you want to focus on developing. And that's how you learn to fly. High.

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smart, kind, helpful people: my resource hot list