“And then he walked past and I was like…[screech]!”

“LOL! What did you do?”

“I just stared. I’m such an idiot!”

Which was fun, but it needed more…red:

Lots more red:

And then a bit of blue and wonder to finish it off:

Hansy Better has done it! Our first ever grantee of the Awesome Foundation was featured on the front page of Thursday’s Boston Globe for making the largest portable hammock in the world. [Thanks Reed for the picture] The hammock is made of 4,278 feet of rope made from recycled bottles inspiring both public and environmental joy alike. In a world where so much of the news consists of negative sensationalism it’s empowering to see this one, rather large, bright spot.

After being funded by the Awesome Foundation Hansy received gifts of materials and additional funds from Kickstarter, a site for funding creative and innovative projects, and countless man hours from volunteers who helped weave the hammock. What drew us as a group to funding the project was firstly, it’s a GIANT HAMMOCK, and secondly, it had the potential to bond communities together and allow everyone a place to feel how awe-inspiring the world can be.

Since then the projects we’ve funded have had a decidedly powerful aim of individual empowerment and public good. What we do together as a group is not anything secret or special- we are ten individuals who come together monthly and pool our own money into funding the next awesome project. Anyone can do it. Anyone. can. do. it.

I can’t speak for the others involved but I believe it’s made me a better person and I definitely feel that some of the awesome that our grantees have in spades has rubbed off a little and kicked me into action on other projects that help. And I’m challenging everyone right here, right now to look into their pockets or live a bit more simply and support the making of awesome in the world. I’m not suggesting diverting funds that would go to support other’s basic survival, but I think we all have the obligation to support our communal enjoyment of life. So, let’s go!

Over this past weekend hoards of thinkers, makers and doers descended on the gorgeous Xanadu of the O’Reilly Media headquarters in Sebastopol, CA. Invited by Tim O’Reilly to participate in a free-form weekend of focused and unfocused conversations and talks concerning current and emerging ventures in technology, it was a nerd’s paradise. There were talks on Cloud Robotics, The Slow Technology Movement, How to Get a Billion Views on Youtube and Better HTML5 Apps. One participant brought Nao, a $14,000 autonomous, programmable humanoid robot made by Aldebaran Robotics. It danced and entertained us with it’s version of MJ’s “Thriller”:

The Makershed was open for soldering blinking LED pins for our name tags and I took mine a step further by crafting an origami brooch around the light. I used a star box for the base and a modified balloon fold for the covering. After I folded the star box I marked the corners and unfolded it to draw the designs on the arms of the star with pen and ink:

Then encased the light inside the paper structure:

And cut the balloon to hollow out the middle and cover the light:

All in all the project took about an hour to make, and the light from the LED had a stunning effect on the paper folds at night. I met many amazing people at Foo and there wasn’t one person there that didn’t inspire me to keep the bar raised high and continue thinking, making and doing wonderful things. It’s important to have these resources and events for people to coalesce around and understand and appreciate the different perspectives and needs of each other. By meeting face to face it’s honestly the only way that we can gain enough perspective to broaden and deepen the impact of technology in relevant ways for it to contribute to the success and enlightenment of our people. Thank you again Tim and Sara and the whole O’Reilly team- you hosted an awesome event!

The end of last month marked an important milestone in my life. I realized along with my co-founders and partners that the direction our studio was headed in was not the direction we had originally intended. Our business had transformed from a shared passion for projects that bridged the gap between art and technology to a development studio for mobile software applications. The studio had originally emerged as a shared space where classes and workshops could inspire and support the community of hackers, scientists, artists and makers as well as create experiential installations and events. The money that we would get from developing web and mobile games and applications would go towards continuing this outreach and support of creative play.

What we realized along the way was that the work needed for the code development of the applications quickly overshadowed all other projects and endeavors. Had the studio petitioned for non-profit status there may have been more resources and manpower available to extend the educational development and event program, but as it was our basic sustainability needed to happen first. What started as sustainable development projects became long-term commitments and I had to adapt quickly to learning how to code. As we moved farther away from our original plans my business development and artistic skills where put on the back burner to the amount of coding help the studio needed.

Besides my new-found love of coding, the ability to think on my feet and understand both the big picture as well as being a part of all processes of a new business is a skill I’m proud to say I’ve achieved. And I do mean all, from knowing how to sweet-talk a government official into not making us refile our papers for a small name change to knowing what makes an iguana happy. [I'll leave you to figure out that one as it's one of the sweetest joys in life.]

The conclusion we reached together that DINO was not able to cultivate or require my best strengths was both heartbreaking and revitalizing. It’s allowed me the freedom to identify my next challenge and reassess where my abilities can be best applied. Thank you, David and Aaron, for everything. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Now, what’s next?

Having survived a drop the distance of 500 feet, the monster opened it’s one functioning eye to perceive lamposts and the undersides of two fighter ships descending to street level. It heard a soft shriek and footsteps nearby followed by the high-pitched whistle of missiles launched. There was an acrid sweet smell in the air and it occurred to the monster that there really wasn’t anywhere else better to be than in London after a good rain.

From Wikipedia: The concept of sacred and profane comes from French sociologist Emile Durkheim; the dichotomy between the sacred and the profane to be the central characteristic of religion: “religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden.^” In Durkheim’s theory, the sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems. The profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the dichotomy sacred/profane was not equivalent to good/evil. The sacred could be good or evil, and the profane could be either as well.

I had chosen an African head sculpted from ebony wood, a hair comb of my grandmother’s, an unidentifiable translucent shell, a glass ball used to buoy sea nets, the broken top of a guardrail holder and a scarf with alternating silk and matte stripes.

Philosophically, the objects made little sense as being imbued with either good or evil, but the arrangement and atmosphere of the composition gave them a greater mysterious pull. It was the longest life drawing I’ve ever done, taking around 60 hours to complete over the course of weeks of 3-5 hour sittings. I used hot-pressed 300lb heavyweight Fabriano paper (which I highly recommend for any serious drawing) and the finished image measures 18″ x 30″.