The Barbies seem to be on Vacation (headed to Hawaii for winter I think) and the dinosaurs have moved in — much to our delight.
Their constant presence in our living room has inspired some research into early depictions of dinosaurs (more on that later) and came across this unbelievable film “The Lost World” made in 1925.
Wow.
Ada hasn’t had a hat all winter. Well to clarify, she has a hat, but not one she’s willing to wear. So, given the fact that there was a dump of snow this morning and more on the way I decided I’d better make something happen. Inspired by this pattern found in a Martha Steward magazine years ago, and a pile of grey fleece I’ve had sitting around for ages, I pulled this together!
To be honest, I’m quite pleased with myself. Yet to be determined as to whether or not the princess will concur.
I have always admired the work of Hannah Höch—one of the few women associated with the Dada movement and a pioneer of photomontage. As we’ve been thinking a lot about collage over here (for a new product that is proving very difficult to manufacture nicely and cheaply) Höch has been on my mind a lot.
Grotesque, 1963
I would love to get my hands on either of these two books. This one Picture Book should be quite easy (thanks Amazon). A collection of collages and poetry that has recently been translated into English.
The other, Album, is a personal scrapbook of sorts. From babies to botany to sports, Hoch clearly had a wide range of inspiration for her work from within fine art and pop culture. Right up my alley! Thanks Hannah.
There have been a lot of blogs and articles talking about the launch of Lego’s new product Lego Friends (otherwise known as Lego for girls). Not wanting to get my knickers in a knot until I had a chance to actually see what it was all about, I delayed judgement. Well, consider my knickers completely and nearly irreparably tangled: boobs, beauty salons and bakeries, all in shades of pink and purple. It just seems so necessary and totally depressing.
But then I also read this blog post in gizmodo and although the title of the author’s post is gets under my skin (here go the feminists complaining again!) I think he has a good point. That is that kids can do the same thing with with these objects of brutal gender stereotypes that they do with all the Harry Potter and Star Wars sets — throw out the instructions and build whatever they want. Once you get rid of the stupid doll (which is shockingly skinnier than any other lego character ever) that comes with it you can simply have some pretty pink, purple and aqua to mix in with your red, yellow and blue bricks.
Still lame. And far from this awesome ad from the 70s, but maybe not a complete deal breaker?
Plus, it totally does remind me of this hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch from years ago.
Happy New Year!
Ponderosa pine seedling found on a Christmas day walk in the Okanagan.
For those of you in Vancouver you should definitely do your holiday shopping at Toque at the Western Front, next weekend (Dec 9 & 10th). Friday night you can even do it with a drink in your hand.
We will be there, along with old friends Banquet and Sonja Ahlers, and a new favorite, jewelry maker Anita Sikma (I’m really hoping one of these ends up in my stocking).
Or so says this interesting article in the New York Times.
At the very least it does confirm what we have always felt, and why we’ve continued to make these things—that with a few simple and consistent shapes kids can learn about proportion, math, architecture, aesthetics and actually (hopefully) have fun while they’re doing it.
As someone trying to make toys for kids I think it’s always good to be reminded of this, from Wired Magazine. I might be tempted to add “rocks” into this list as well.
Sometimes (OK, most times) I’m embarassed/conflicted about how much media my 4 year old consumes in the form of television, movies, iPhone, PBSKids.com, etc. For example, the super shitty show she’s watching on TV right now in order to by myself some time to write this post about how I feel guilty about how much television she watches. I had always assumed I’d be a militant about that, but I quickly came to realize that as a mom who works full-time with a lot of side projects, dinners to make, apartments to clean and events that Ada needs to be dragged too that media, in it’s many insidious forms, can be my friend. Two recent articles in the New York Times also kind of added to my already high enough anxiety around the matter: here and here.
Reading hundreds of kid craft blogs don’t help either really — reminding me that instead of letting Ada watch SuperWhy I should probably be baking bread or building a doll house with her or something.
But, I try to be a realist and I have to say that there are a lot of fantastic iPhone/iPad apps out there that keep her distracted in the best way possible.
The Montessorium App for spelling and math is beautiful and excellent.
As is this great spelling puzzle Shape-O.
Now I’m excited to check out Inhabitot’s new list of Top 10 educational apps for kids. And to cut myself some slack about the TV watching (and also making a long list of christmas crafts we’re going to do to tip the scales back).
