POV: Pursuits.

I met my fiance, Rob, on a blind date—or, I suppose, as close to blind as you can get these days. Leading up to our meeting, my sister-in-law, the one responsible for our meeting, filled me in on a few key details: “He’s tall,” she said. “He’s funny. And he has a clean apartment.” Aside from that, I also knew that he was a violinist and that he loved wine. My sister-in-law had written an article that revealed the lengths he’d gone to properly store it in his apartment, including taping down the lights in his refrigerator, and investing in a device outfitted with a surgical-grade needle that allows wine drinkers to taste sips from an aging bottle without removing the cork.

“I hear you like wine,” I said at some point on our date, prepared to confess how little I knew on the subject, and that whenever I’d ordered a glass in the past, I’d made my choice based on which had the easiest name to pronounce.

“We don’t have to talk about stupid wine,” he said. It’s a line we repeat often—usually just before talking about wine—and laugh.

Cirera + Espinet on Clever.

I recently had the pleasure of writing about this 540 square-foot bachelor pad in Barcelona, which features red marble countertops, dark green micro-cement floors, and terracotta velvet curtains instead of doors. Designed by local firm Cirera + Espinet, the apartment is full of unique solutions to a host of common small-space conundrums: cramped corners, lack of light, inadequate storage. What I love most about it, though, is that despite its bright colors (and all that luxurious velvet), it's a space that somehow still manages to feel minimal. “We wanted to create a multifunctional apartment,” the designers say, “that was daring and simple at the same time.”

Read more on Clever. Photos by Enric Badrinas.

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. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

I tried acupuncture for the first time recently, spending an hour in a brightly-lit office, discussing sleep and stress levels and the color of my tongue; then, another 30 minutes on a bed in a dark room, my body a constellation of thread-thin needles. A tiny lamp, burning orange, shone on my toes.

As the pins went in, I recounted past needle encounters gone wrong, and my unfortunate tendency to faint post-puncture. “Meditate,” said the doctor, most certainly reading my mind. “Your thoughts may drift, but just remember to breathe.” An assistant switched off the foot warmer, draped me in a blanket, and shut the door.

Dutifully, I focused on my breath. But not a minute passed before I was trying to figure out what time it must be, picturing the clock on the door counting down the seconds. I thought about the 78-degree weather in the next day’s forecast and the final sentence of a freelance assignment due that week. I wondered whether paper invitations were a worthwhile wedding expense. I studied a vent in the corner of the ceiling and asked myself what would happen to the needles in my legs if I went to sleep and let them fall slack.

The assistant reappeared. “That was 30 minutes?” I asked. She told me that it had in fact been a little longer, then set to work removing the pins. The light was back on, buzzing.

—

One of my earliest memories is being picked up at nursery school, and telling my dad I hadn’t slept at naptime. “I was thinking instead,” I said. “What about?” he asked. “Wars,” I answered. “And hospitals.”

Later, when I was a little older, I remember going on field trips with my elementary school classes—sitting in plays, wandering museums, shuffling single-file through the kitchen of the local bagel shop—and using the time to daydream. If something didn’t hold my attention, there was a never-ending queue of other things to think about.

Many years later, my ability to focus has improved. But there are moments—regularly, every day—when I find I’ve tuned out what’s in front of me. A stranger at a dinner party may be talking and I’ll come to the terrifying realization that I haven’t heard a word they’ve said. Reading on the subway, I’ll reach the end of a news article having read the first line but skipped over everything else. Sometimes, still, I daydream through plays and movies, absorbing nothing of them.

Of course, there’s nothing special about this. Everyone gets distracted; it’s healthy—and healing—to daydream. But I notice these small daily allowances now more than ever—now, when it feels imperative to stay awake, to hear others, to read the words and understand the full story. It’s made me realize how easy it is to drop out of the present. To find a way out of engaging with what isn’t easy or immediately attention-grabbing. To miss things completely: strings of words, entire stories, precious opportunities to lie down and breathe deeply.

—

My fiance, Rob, and I took a trip to Aarhus, Denmark last year, arriving on a Sunday in mid-November. The day and a half prior had been frenzied. A nine-hour delay out of New York, a whirlwind stop in Oslo, and a mishmash of wintry weather made for a weekend that seemed to represent a microcosm of the year leading up to it—exhausting, full of joys and frustrations, and over in an instant. The first day, I barely left our hotel room. On the morning of the second, I went for a walk alone while Rob, a musician, rehearsed for a symphony performance at a nearby concert hall.

With no international phone plan, there were no calls to take, no texts to write, no breaking news to read. Instead I hobbled on cobblestones, drank three cups of coffee in three different coffee shops, and met the people who made them. I ate the world’s best lunch—crumbly, caramel-y cheese on the densest, stickiest bread imaginable—plucking the crusts from the plate as the waiter came to retrieve it: “Wait! I’ll take those with me.” I read a book. I thought of things to write about. (In fact, I planned to write this piece there, and then, as always, the time flew.)

Later in the afternoon, I slipped into the concert hall to watch the last hour of rehearsal. I felt a very particular kind of happy, awake to my senses and a little overwhelmed. I’d feel the same way months later in New Orleans, licking sugar off my fingers to the tune of a lone trumpet, and again, more recently, catching up with a crowd of familiar faces in the sunlight at a friend’s art opening. But in that moment, in Aarhus, none of this had happened yet. There was only this humming hall and its glowing, wood-paneled walls.

The symphony was playing sections of the same piece over and over with Rob conducting, standing on his toes in polka-dotted socks.

When I was younger, ignorant to the bliss of music without words, I might have daydreamed it all away. Now, alone in the audience, I was convinced I could hear every note.

—

You can find my previous POV entries, here. Thank you so much for reading.

Many Voices.

In belated celebration of International Women's Day (but also because it's never the wrong time to recognize creative women), here are snippets from conversations with five inspiring artists I've been lucky enough to interview.

1) Arpana Rayamajhi, Jewelry Designer, New York City

Photo by Anna Rose

For The Weekender (translated to German): “I’ve always made things, and ultimately, the reason I do what I do hasn’t changed. It’s just that the language I use to talk about it has gotten a little more sophisticated. When I was younger, I would say, ‘I do this because I love it.’ Now it’s, ‘This is a medium for me to connect with myself and the world.’ In ten years it could be something completely different.”

2) Nicole Katz, Director of Paper Chase Press, Los Angeles

For Sight Unseen: "Being a manufacturer in California is important to us, now more than ever. We live in a state that’s approaching a $15 minimum wage, has some of the most stringent environmental and labor laws in the country, and supports a huge immigrant population—my family included. These are values we care about and that we live by."

3) Carla Fernández, Fashion Designer, Mexico City

Photo by Ana Hop 

For Freunde von Freunden: "We want to prevent the extinction of Mexican crafts. My clothing is very fashion-forward but if you look at how it’s made, you’ll understand that it has traditional roots. I’m always thinking, how can we allow these people, who do such amazing work with their hands, to keep their skills?"

4) Megan Eaton Griswold, Owner of Little Moving Spaces, Jackson, WY

Photo by Jenny Pfeiffer

For Architectural Digest: "I wanted to make something small and affordable, yet give it a style we hadn’t seen in a yurt before." (Griswold on her Wyoming yurt, which boasts "the lattice structure and mobility of its traditional Mongolian counterpart, but also a porcelain stove, Michael Anastassiades lighting, and a kitchen built using 800 pounds of Carrara marble hauled in by sled on a trail she forged herself.")

5) Carly Jo Morgan, Furniture Designer, Los Angeles

Photo via the artist's website

For Sight Unseen: "I spent most of my life identifying more with men, which I grew to realize was more out of my own insecurities. Something has softened in me, especially since becoming a mother, and now strong, inspiring women are flowing into all aspects of my life. The sisterhood is deep."

Many thanks to these women, and all the many others I've had the pleasure of interviewing over the last few years—your stories continue to inspire me.

Moon Lists.

The holiday rush now behind me, I've realized that again, several weeks have passed in a flash. I spent most of the last four with my family in California, doing everything we typically do this time of year: watch home videos; rummage through boxes of old photos; indulge in our signature rotation of classic Christmas meals and my mom's virtuosic Japanese dinners, which feature dozens of familiar dishes she (and we) grew up eating. Around the holidays, as always, there's so much of the past present.

2017, as I mentioned here, passed in a blur. This year, I'm making it a goal to focus attention on paying attention—and I'm very happy to have found inspiration in Moon Lists, a site created by writer, editor, and fellow FvF contributor Leigh Patterson. Inspired by a project by photographer Sam Abell, Leigh asks three women every month to reflect on the past 30 days with a short series of questions.

I've particularly liked entries from other writers, like Stephanie Madewell, whose experience of nature last April was punctuated with birdsong:

"...the staccato hops of a woodpecker moving deliberately up and down the trunk of the cedar tree; a swallow flying across the sky, wings out, then in, a swift and joyful looping like writing in cursive with a calligrapher’s pen; the racket of wings from a pair of doves kicked up from the brush; songs and calls in the trees, more and more all the time."

Or Marion Seury of Paris, who stumbled on a breathtaking read in June:

"...someone forgot the book 'à ce soir' by writer/journalist laure adler at my place. she is a marguerite duras specialist and you can feel an influence on her writing i think. a very personal and emotional book. I read it straight. It shook my heart."

Or Su Wu of Mexico City, who received a thrilling call in May:

"I’m pregnant, my best friend said into the phone without hello, and I yelled, holy fuck, on the street in another country. Some guy turned, rushed over and asked, are you okay?, and it was a new kind of joy for me, a whole joy running headlong into kindness, and I said, I’m okay, and really, more than ever this month, I was."

Each year seems to pass quicker than the last. It's easy to forget what happened a week ago, or three months ago, or twelve. I don't like the idea of holding on to the past, but I do like the idea of finding ways to preserve the moments, images, tastes, sounds, smells, and interactions that are the tiles in a year's mosaic—and that make reflecting on the past an act of staying alert, awake, aware.

This makes me think of something my dad wrote the day after drinking a 75-year-old wine in honor of his 75th birthday: "It took me back. And forward."

---
Find all of Leigh Patterson's Moon Lists (including those excerpted above in their entirety), here. Photo by Emily Johnston.

POV: Return.

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. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

I got lost on election night, sometime between 11 and 12, before the results were posted. I was heading home from a friend’s apartment only a few blocks from mine, empty-handed—I’d brought wine, cheese, a box of chocolate cake mix but left it all behind in various states of destruction. It was cold and mind-bogglingly quiet save for the rattle of a beer can tumbleweed. In the dark, I considered prayer. I wracked my brain for mantras. I reminded myself of my insistent, if ill-defined, belief in magic. I traveled four blocks before realizing I was walking in the wrong direction.

—

I posted to this blog the day after; then not a single time again until today. To say that I was at a loss for words wouldn’t be quite right—it was more like a significant loss of focus. Truth be told, there were a number of things in the past twelve months that contributed to my absence here: changes in work, a transition to a new neighborhood, the blossoming of a happy relationship, travel, new friends.

But there was something else, too. I suddenly had a lot of questions. At first, post-election, I wondered if I had the skills—and the smarts—to be a useful member of what suddenly felt like a very different world. I wondered how to ask the right questions, do the right reading, respond effectively. Mostly, I wondered about how best to use my time—and ironically, a lot of time passed as I thought about that.

In the meantime, there were jobs to do, friends to see, a partner I fiercely wanted to stay present for. And still more questions arose: Was it possible to balance the personal, professional, and political, and still have time to myself—to write, to reflect, to rest, to do nothing? To give these kinds of big questions the space and attention required for them not to remain just questions?

Days, weeks, months flew by. Somehow—in a haze of city traffic, airplane flights, news headlines, deadlines—a year passed.

I had no plans not to post here, or to disappear without saying anything (I apologize for that!). I always assumed I’d write something tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that.

I’m still asking myself many of the same questions. But I’ve liked the process of working out the skills needed to answer them. I’ve learned that different times require different things—different ways of thinking, doing, asking. So that we can continue to grow. Meet new challenges. Equip ourselves to live the kinds of lives we find ourselves living.

—

One gray October afternoon, I sat with Emily in the living room of her rented upstate farmhouse and watched her build a fire—a skill, having only known her as a city dweller, I wasn’t aware she possessed. Crouched at the hearth in this drafty house, she told me it was something she’d learned out of necessity and had grown better at with practice. I watched as she layered wood and paper, erecting a structure that looked a lot like the “houses” I built from leaves and sticks when I was little, anxious to attract the sorts of small animals that lived nowhere near Los Angeles: hedgehogs, chipmunks, prairie dogs.

I remembered something else from that era of my life, too. It was the feeling of seeing fire, wondering what it was and deciding that it existed only in the realm of magic. If I’m being honest, as an adult—with limited knowledge of science, in a city apartment far from the wilderness—it still does. It’s a skill that’s always struck me as otherworldly—and yet here was my friend, blowing air through her fingers, building fire slowly, the room growing brighter with every breath.

—

You can find my previous POV entries, here.

To whoever is still out there—thank you so much for reading! I’m sorry, again, for disappearing without explanation for such a long time. Starting after Thanksgiving, I plan to post more often—perhaps not every day, but a few times per month. I'm so grateful to the community I’ve found and connected with here. Thank you for your time, and your notes and emails over the past few months! I’m so glad to be back.

POV: Waves.

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. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

Douglas & Bec on Sight Unseen.

Thrilled to have been able to interview Bec Dowie of Douglas + Bec, a New Zealand-based furniture and lighting design studio, a few weeks ago for Sight Unseen. Bec, who founded the company alongside her father, Douglas, lives 45 minutes outside of Auckland in a converted barn designed to serve as both home and studio.

With bedrooms on movable pods, the space transforms in minutes flat. Not surprisingly, it's furnished almost entirely with family-made pieces—but only just as many as the trio need. During the renovation, Bec says, “We lived with very little for a long time, and [that experience] really ended up informing the design of our home. We had a lovely education that we didn’t need a lot. So when we built the house, everything was very simple. The design shows a lot of restraint.”

Find the full interview on Sight Unseen. Beautiful photos by Pippa Drummond.

More from my Sight Unseen archive: Group Partner / Todd St. John / Material Lust. Thanks so much, as always, for reading.

Live In Yourself.

Words for Monday, courtesy of Mina Loy: "Forget that you live in houses, that you may live in yourself."

A few recommended reads for the week:
-Exquisite dirt.
-My most recent interview for Sight Unseen, with Ladies & Gentlemen Studio.
-Beautiful words from Ai Bihr, via Apiece Apart: "In Japanese we say, ‘ashita wa asu no kaze ga huku’—tomorrow a new wind blows. Tomorrow is a new day."

Photos via my Instagram.

POV: Protection.

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. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

Under Repair.

Please excuse the lack of posts this week as I figure out the best way to fix quite a big photo issue on the site—thank you for your understanding as I sort things out. I'll be back next week with an update; until then, wishing you a wonderful week!

A few (picture-less) POVs in the meantime:
-On rotations.
-On being heard.
-On settling (in the best possible way).

Thank you so much for reading. Photo by Max Wanger.

Material Lust on Sight Unseen.

Although I'd met Material Lust designers Christian Swafford and Lauren Larson before, it wasn't until I visited their studio on assignment for Sight Unseen that I learned the story behind their brand, which produces furniture and home goods with decidedly dark flair. It was lovely to spend a fall morning in their space—to see their latest work, pore over their beautiful (and non-digital!) inspiration boards, and learn more about what inspires their cutting-edge aesthetic.

As it turns out, that aesthetic is one that's routinely confused for demonic. Says Christian: “We posted a photo on Instagram recently of a pentagram and a few of our chairs, and someone commented, ‘Unfollow these Satanists.’ Our design was based off of DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. It was historical, but it had nothing to do with devil worship. Everyone feels the need to categorize.”

Find the full interview on Sight Unseen. Photos by Emily Johnston.

More from my Sight Unseen archive: Group Partner / Todd St. John / Ladies & Gentlmen Studio. Thanks so much for reading.

POV: Roads.

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. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

Brutalist Beauty on FVF.

Sculptor Pedro Reyes and clothing designer Carla Fernández make their home in a beautiful Brutalist structure in Mexico City, surrounding themselves with color, plant life, and an ever-growing collection of books. I was lucky enough to interview the couple for Freunde von Freunden last month, for a feature that went live this week. My favorite moment in our conversation? Pedro's comparison of the home to both a factory and a playground—and his description of the contents of his library.

"Our collection is very diverse," he says. "Just last week, I came back from Japan with two suitcases full of books, including an atlas of sand and a book about caterpillars. It all seems random—but it's not."

Read more on Freunde von Freunden. Photos by Ana Hop.

More work on FvF: Linda Derschang / Chelsea Miller / Mick Johan.

2016.

Back in Brooklyn after ten days on the road—seven in LA and another three in Austin (where, ironically, it was colder than it was at the time in New York). Though the Monday after the holidays is always a little rough, I'm happy to be here, where I look forward to sharing more as the year unfolds. To start, here are a few photos from a recent shoot and Q+A I did with Urban Outfitters at my apartment, just prior to the holidays. During the interview, I was asked for my thoughts on resolutions—as I shared then, I've never been one to make any. My only wish for this year, and every year, is to be surprised at where it takes me.

Four days in, I'm not disappointed.

Find the Q+A, here. (Also featured: the amazing artist Elise Peterson, who I had the pleasure of interviewing this fall, and photographer Emma Jane Kepley.)

 Photos by Anna Ottum. Have a wonderful Monday—and happy new year.

Happy Holidays.

I'll be spending the next ten days or so on a little holiday—resting, reading, (hopefully) writing, and most certainly spending some quality time with the wooly creature pictured below. Very much looking forward to returning January 4th (after ringing in 2016 in Austin!) with new stories. In the meantime, wishing you all a warm and wonderful end to the year—and a happy start to the one ahead. Here's to new adventures, always.

Some reading for the break:
-The year in volcanic activity, YouTube, and cakes.
-Hand-knitted treasures made by New York City grandmothers.
-Loved putting together The 20-Something's Guide to Glassware.
-Philip Pullman on embracing the cold: "...if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that." (Thanks, Stephanie.)
-And lastly, favorite POVs from 2015: on rotations, happy surprises, and feeling human.

See you in a few days, and many thanks for reading. As always, sharing this space with you has added so much brightness to my year.

Photo by Max Wanger.

Isaac Nichols on Sight Unseen.

I interviewed Brooklyn-based ceramicist Isaac Nichols for Sight Unseen earlier this fall, spending an unseasonably warm morning in his Greenpoint studio near McCarren Park. I was already a fan of his famous "boob pots", having seen them in shop windows around the city for months, but I hadn't known anything about his story prior to our meeting. As it turns out, ceramics are a relatively new endeavor for Isaac, who was once a fine arts student and began experimenting with clay amid frustrations with his formal training. Now, his pots have found an audience among creative spirits far and wide. They've even become part of a larger feminist discussion, garnering praise for their realistic shape.

Says Isaac, who likes to listen to Thoreau as he works, "I still have a hard time thinking, ‘Here I am, the boob potter.’ But I’ve been trying not to worry about whether this is the direction I’m supposed to be on. Because before I found success in this, I put a lot of emphasis on, ‘Oh, I don’t do this. I don’t do that.’ And I missed out on a lot of life."
   

Read the interview on Sight Unseen. Photos by Emily Johnston. More from Isaac, here.

New Work: Shinola x WorkOf.

For those in a giving mood (and with holiday decorating yet to be done), this beautiful selection of hand-crafted Christmas ornaments is up for auction on Paddle8. Commissioned in collaboration between Shinola and WorkOf—companies that share a commitment to supporting American design and manufacturing—each ornament was made by a different independent designer or maker nationwide. Many take cues from the makers' signature materials and techniques. All have stories behind them.

Among my favorites: Haptic Lab's sequined and pin-studded sphere; Hui Buy's suspended succulents; and Elyse Graham's blueberry-colored Cluster, made using balloons. I also love Daniel Moyer's ornament, pictured fourth below—the artist, perhaps missing summer, recreated the effect of a lightning bug using rounds of lavender resin that glow in the dark.

In honor of the auction, I was lucky enough to interview WorkOf founder Charlie Miner and Creative Director Isaac Friedman-Heiman for Shinola's The Journal.  Accompanying studio tours with Eric Trine and Ryden Rizzo—two designers who contributed ornaments to the auction—are up on the WorkOf site, too.

To shop the auction, visit Paddle8.  Proceeds benefit MOCAD, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (a place I was lucky enough to visit during my trip this summer).

POV: Meditations.

The day I left Berlin, I cleaned the apartment I'd been staying in, one room at a time. I stripped the bed. Sponged down the kitchen counters. Cleaned strands of dark hair from the bathroom's white tile floors. On the way out, I stood on tiptoe to close the windows against the rain. Then, airport-bound and bags in tow, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror by the door. Right away and with surprise, I thought, oh, it's you.

Todd St. John on Sight Unseen.

I've long been a fan of Sight Unseen's thoughtful and beautifully captured Studio Visits, so I'm thrilled to share my first contribution to the series. Todd St. John is an illustrator, graphic designer, furniture maker, and animator who works out of a spacious studio in Gowanus. (Funnily enough, we discovered we attended the same high school, albeit years apart, in Hawaii.) Todd's clients include The New York Times, The New Yorker, Nickelodeon, and MTV, and though his growing portfolio represents decades of work, he's nurtured an inquisitive spirit since childhood.

"I'm curious," he says. "I like trying to figure out how to do things myself. There's an excitement to that that never goes away."

Find the full interview at Sight Unseen. Photos by the wonderful Emily Johnston. More about Todd St. John, here.