I love the Rebecca and Drew new website and sustainability mission.
You can reuse this bag as many times you want as well as draw your own design on it and fill in the words in the statement!

November 17, 2008

How hard is it to organize a community garden, promote energy efficiency and make a city to place benches alongside your main neighborhood street?  Really hard.  SUSTAINABLE FLATBUSH is an organization based in Flatbush area of Brooklyn that emerged from neighbors desiring changes.  It has been responsible for such projects as a Parking Day, Flatbush Community Garden and Flatbush Electronics Recycling. 

November 10, 2008

Me and Paul have been fond of PERCH bird feeder and planter that are made of white earthenware. 
P.S (Their website is so cute!!)

Forest is so nice…

October 17, 2008

Diana Sudyka’s watercolors are amazing.  A lot of her drawings and watercolors are of birds and animals. She makes high quality, limited edition archival inkjet prints of her works on sustainable, archival, bamboo paper. 

September 10, 2008

I found this juicer design on Design Boom blog.  The design is composed of a ceramic teapot used as a citrus squeezer/drinks pitcher. - Design Boom

August 19, 2008

I like this drawing of New York trees by Katie Holten.  Just in case to let you know, there are not a lot of trees in New York City, so these are probably from New York state. Katie Holten was born in Dublin and curreltly lives and works in New York. Katie makes drawings, installations, sculptures and public art projects which are focused on the relationship between the individual and her environment.

July 15, 2008

*above: Houses in Victorian Ditmas Park




*above:  Russian village style houses

Ditmas Park is a very old Victorian neighborhood located in Brooklyn, New York.  Sometimes it is called Victorian Flatbush or West Midwood.  It is filled with old Sycamore trees and vines and consists of many smaller ~2 ~3 block neighborhoods such as Caton Park, Ditmas Park West, Prospect Park South, Albermarle-Kenmore Terrace, West Midwood, Fiske Terrace and e.t.c .  Walking in Ditmas Park makes me feel like I am not in New York City but somewhere in the country side or a small village in Russia.
New York Magazine has an article about Ditmas Park called “Because Ditmas Park Is the New San Francisco”. (!!!!!)  Indeed, one can find similarities of Ditmas Park houses, Painted Ladies of San Francisco and Russian style village houses.



*above: Painted Ladies in San Francisco
*to read a full New York Magazine article on Ditmas Park :

July 08, 2008

Kako Ueda is one of my favorite artists that composes extremely detailed and intricate artwork by cutting paper.  Craft of composing images by cutting paper exists in many cultures, especially Japan, where Kako Ueda is from.  Kako is interested in organic beings such as animals, plants, people, insects and how they are modified by culture.  In Kako Ueda’s cutouts I see outlines of flowers and organic shapes that belong to cultures and subcultures of different time periods - tattoos, deers, skulls, as well as Art Deco flower patterns, flowers executed in Victorian style. 

December 04, 2007

Saved by the Sun is an educational film/program that probes how innovative technologies, new business models, increasing financial incentives, and a growing grassroots commitment to solving the climate crisis are driving a renaissance in solar energy around the world. The film is about an hour long and is divided into six chapters.  For ex, chapter four is about Germany’s renewable energy through financial incentives.
Watch Saved by the Sun here:  Saved by the Sun. 
Watch chapter four of the film by clicking the image below:

December 01, 2007

Beautiful laundry arrangement drying in the sun in Brooklyn near Cortelyou Rd station, Q line.

November 01, 2007

Tim Knowles makes drawings by making trees do all the drawing….Drawings are produced by attaching drawing implements to the tips of tree branches so
the wind’s effects on the tree get recorded on paper.  It is amazing how each drawing is different.  Each tree reveals its different qualities and characteristics through the drawing.  Willow’s drawing is soft and with a lot of spider-web looking lines. Pine’s drawing has sharp angles and points.  It is interesting how “willow drawing” means not only somebody’s drawing of a willow but a drawing done by a willow. Hahahahaa….

June 17, 2007

“Before him was the brilliant sky, below, the lake, and all around the horizon, bright and boundless, which had no end.  He gazed a long time and agonized.  He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blueness, and cried.. What tortured him was that he was an utter stranger to all this.  What was this feast, what was this grand, everlasting festival to which there was no end, and which he could never manage to get in on.  Every morning the same bright sun rises, every morning there is a rainbow at the waterfall; every evening the very highest snowy mountain, there, in the distance, at the edge of the sky, glows with a purple flame; every “little bitty fly that buzzes about him in the hot ray of sunshine has its part in the chorus: knows its place, loves it and is happy”; every blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and with a song goes forth, and with a song returns; only he knows nothing, and understands nothing, neither men nor sounds; he is a stranger to everything and an outcast”

April 02, 2007

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at UCLA, los Angeles, California.  Jared Diamond argues that environmental factors (geography, climate, plants and animals) had a decisive influence on human societies and therefore history. 

June 15, 2006

Caraway is a biennial plant native to western Asia, Europe and Northern Africa. Caravay grows on meadows, field edges, dry valleys, floodland meadows as well as weed around house dwellings. Seed-resembling fruits are usually used as a spice in breads, especially rye bread. Although rye flour is naturally more dense than wheat flour, there is a theory that seeded rye bread is even more dense because the limonene from the caraway fruits has yeast-killing properties.  Caraway is also used in liquors, casseroles, curry and other foods.

April 12, 2006

“The big, big thing I’m always looking for in my work is a sort of attraction-repulsion thing, where the stuff is beautiful to begin with until you notice that some sort of horrible violence is about to happen or is in the middle of happening. Or that it’s some sort of interior monologue. ” - from art21

February 21, 2006

November 01, 2005

From Emmas Blog

August 04, 2003