This is the work of New York artist Jason Hackenwerth at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

The sculpture took over 10,000 balloons, six days to construct and it is breathtaking.

It represents the artist’s interpretation of the legend of Aphrodite and Eros and the double helix structure hangs over 40 feet tall.

Jason Hackenwerth’s website

Lots more images on Flickr

via Colossal

Dust is everywhere, most of the time it is a nuisance, but sometimes it is beautiful.

This amazing dust art is the work of Oscar Santillan. He created a “window” by scrapping off the paint and some of the concrete from the wall and then arranging that dust in the same pattern on the floor, as if light was streaming through his window.

I love how the edges of the “light” are fading away as the dust moves.

via My Modern Met

Oscar Santillan’s blog

Since about 1999 I have been saving my old denim jeans, and I have asked my family to save theirs as well. The idea is that one day I will make a denim rag rug. I am not exactly sure how I will do this. I don’t want to braid it, and I can’t imagine there will be a loom involved. Maybe some sort of crochet technique? With strips of cloth and a huge crochet hook? I don’t know – but it will happen. It’s #30 on the life list.

Because this project has been in the development phase for over a decade, we have collected a lot (really a lot) of denim. When my parents moved house this fall they moved a few really heavy boxes labeled “Sarah’s fabric.” I might have heard it mentioned a time or two over Christmas.

It’s probably time to get on that. Or at least time to figure out the technique.

I started thinking about that back burner project because of these awesome images by Denimu.

These are scenes that have been created entirely from recycled denim. British artist Ian Berry takes weeks to painstakingly construct each image with the right shades of fabric.

I am blown away by the sheer awesomeness on display here.

The work could turn a little crafty – kind of like quilting – but it feels very far from that to me. It has something to do with the urban scenes that Berry has chosen to depict.

All images from the Denimu website.

via My Modern Met

This week on the Wide World of Web:

Yeah, pretty much everyone I know (or would care to know) would love a secret passage bookshelf.

I am not usually all that excited about end of the year lists, but this one: 50 Wonderful Things From the Year in Pop Culture, is indeed wonderful.

This interview with Lois Lowry is #35 and it made me cry, a lot. “She realized that day that she could talk to kids or she could talk to adults, but not to both: ‘And so I chose the kids.’ ”

After years of listening to his stand-up, I finally saw Mike Birbiglia’s  Sleepwalk with Me – I was pleasantly surprised to see it also stars Lauren Ambrose, it is both hilarious and touching.

Small people or big world?

Cheers to all the crunchy moms!

Every month I don’t know how the photos could get any better and then they do.

Film locations revisited.

How to build a Rainbow Igloo.

Along those same lines: Ice palaces and larger-than-life animals at The Snow World Festival.

Netflix always suggests the Ballet Documentaries to me (I do love them) and First Position is the best one I have ever seen. Among others, it stars Michaela DePrince, a Sierra Leone war orphan turned dancer, battling racism in the ballet world.

Painting by Allison Johnson buy it here – there is lots more awesome work on her website.

So, I look at the Bergdorf Goodman windows in New York and sigh. Christmas is a cold weather holiday, and they do winter with more elegance than anyone else.

This year the windows are an art deco extravaganza. They are decadent, and beautiful, and festive.

I love how the perspective shifts to top view in this one.

This truly is maximalism at its best.

Bravo and congratulations to the design team. You have outdone yourselves.

Head Designer: David Hoey

all images from the Bergdorf Goodman Blog – check out the behind the scenes video and interview with David Hoey they have posted.

With all those people coming over for all that eating and drinking, it is also the time of year to pull out all the extra plates. I have been very blessed with dishes. As the only granddaughter of a woman who liked to entertain I have more than my share of dish sets, and I also have several “orphan” plates. Sometimes plates have just magically appeared in the cupboard, don’t know where, or when or why, but there they are. Sometimes it is the last plate from a set, all it’s mates are broken. Regardless I, like many people, own several plates that don’t match anything else, and so they don’t get used.

The folks at Mooz also had some extra plates and noticed that their friends did too. They solicited orphan plate donations, and constructed this Christmas tree in the Belgian city of Hasselt. They only used white plates and tea cups, either solid white or with blue or gold accents.

The hope is that it will foster a sense of fellowship in a couple of ways. First, there is some community buy-in, because they used local recycled plates, but there is also that idea of sharing food over the Christmas season. From the project description:

“with any luck, [the tree] will regularly bring inhabitants, visitors and shopkeepers together over the Christmas period over a drink or a friendly chat!”

They call it ‘Taste Tree’ and is is over 9 meters tall – I think it is pretty fabulous.

I can’t find information on how it was constructed (it must weigh a ton), but I love how it glows from within at night.

Not only is this tree a decoration constructed from recycled materials, but after it comes down on January 6th the porcelain will be broken and the pieces used in a mosaic.

all images from Design Boom

by designers Inge Vanluyd and Stefan Vanbergen of Mooz

It’s a lighting fixture that looks like the love child of a gramophone and a jungle vine.

Designer Aviad Petel designed it specifically for a boutique hotel in Tel Aviv. It provides light for the staircase as well as the landings and is over 12 meters tall.

I love how it looks kind of old-timey, and a bit futuristic at the same time – like the way the year 2000 was envisioned in 1900.

via DesignBoom

Collaborators:

Interior designer: Michael Azulay
Textile designer: Orit Barzelai
Designer: Avi Saina
Designer: Oren Berry

I could watch them open and close all day.

This is the work of South Korean artist U-Ram Choe.

All images from U-Ram Choe’s website

My family lived in a town about 4 hours away from my cousin’s family, so jumping on the tramp was a holiday activity. I remember jumping until my feet felt frozen during several Thanksgivings.

 I think there were some “rules” about the tramp, but it was far enough away from the house that the adults didn’t bother to come out and yell at us very often, even if they could see that we had the whole neighborhood on it at once. 

It got pretty Lord of the Flies at times. I don’t personally remember crying, but I probably did. At this point, it all exists in a golden, hazy memory.

I keep thinking about those holidays, where the kids exist in a different plane than the adults. We were on parallel paths, only intersecting at the beginning and end of the day. Even at dinner time the kids eat first, at a separate table.

These awesome photos are of an installation called Fast Track, and is the work of Salto Architects. They wanted to create “intelligent infrastructure that is emotional and corresponds to the local context.”

This trampoline is 170 feet long. It looks amazing.

It is at the Archstoyanie Festival in Nikola-Lenivets, Russia – which looks like a creative festival in the forest, maybe a bit like Burning Man. See: guy in a tutu.

all images from Salto’s website by Nikita Šohov & Karli Luik

via Knstrct

This week on the Wide World of Web:

for the discerning male Man of the World

a fairy-tale bridge

This cool company makes shoes from upcycled plastic bags The People’s Movement

Antonia is blogging again! and the people rejoiced!

Folded paper illustrations

Movie star by day, Nazi-fighter by night

Traveling to Peru with four kids under seven years old – and rockin’ it

Photorealistic pencil drawings

Sarah at Pink of Perfection is reading Little Women for the first time

This week was Diwali: the Festival of Lights

A little Thanksgiving tabletop inspiration

Painting by Lorella Paleni buy it here – there is lots more awesome work on her website.