A few things that could be poetry An Article by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels notebook.wesleyac.com The right combination of street signs, viewed from a artful vantage point Words on bit of packaging, torn to reveal and conceal as needed The output of a command line tool, perhaps unexpectedly Overheard words, drifting along, liberated from their initial context A form, at first appearing bureaucratic, revealing humanity on deeper reflection An idea, if you consider it divine enough poetrychancewordseuphony
Rewarding Curation An Article by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels notebook.wesleyac.com Something interesting about the design of Twitter is that it doesn’t have much of a way of rewarding curation, only authorship. ...I’m inclined to think that the mechanisms of distribution of information are very important, and I think figuring out ways to reward good curation is probably an important thing. ...I don’t really know what the solution is here, but I do think that finding and curating good links and bits of information is useful, and something that should be rewarded more than it currently is. organizationcollectionscontent
How Websites Die An Article by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels notebook.wesleyac.com I recently started compiling a list of defunct blogging platforms. It’s been interesting to see how websites die — from domain parking pages to timeouts to blank pages to outdated TLS cipher errors, there are a multitude of different ways. It leaves no sign of its past self behindThis obsession with permanence
Woodblock Prints An Essay from The Beauty of Everyday Things by Yanagi Sōetsu It seems to me that many printmakers are suffering under a delusion. Looking at current trends, it appears that recent prints are simply copying fine art and painting. Some printmakers are working in the nanga style of painting. Others are attempting to reproduce the effects of oil. Some cleverly contrived prints are often difficult to distinguish from paintings done with a brush. The question arises: Why are these printmakers working in the medium of woodblock printing at all? For prints to follow in the footsteps of painting has very little meaning. The art of the brush and palette should be left to the brush and palette. The fountainhead of beautyThe preliminary sketch artfashionmedia
The fountainhead of beauty It might be said that the carving of a woodblock encompasses the greatest restriction on freedom. Printmakers come under extraordinary natural constraints on their work. Strangely enough, however, it is this restriction that is the fount of beauty. Constraint and restriction themselves become a blessing. ...Many people see a lack of freedom as the death knell of art. That may be true in the case of the fine arts, but in the handicrafts, lack of freedom is the fountainhead of beauty. constraintscreativity
The preliminary sketch Among the best woodblock prints are many that seem not to have adhered strictly to the preliminary sketch. The sketch simply indicated a general direction, and in many cases was not used at all. Or it was even improved upon in the process of carving and brought vividly to life; the woodblock qualities of the print were accentuated and highlighted. BlueprintsHead and hand drawing