Hasta La Ideas

Brook&Lyn’s light-reflecting amulets inspired by superstitious customs

As a follow-up to her popular debut lineup of agate pendant necklaces and body wraps, the stark leather and mirror pieces that comprise Mimi Jung‘s quietly powerful “Deflected” collection reveal an artistic progression that’s both varied and cohesive.

Inspired by a friend’s great-grandmother who regularly hid a mirror under her blouse to ward off evil spirits, Jung wanted to create a collection based on the idea of controlling one’s own well-being through the power of deflection. Amulet necklaces constructed from folded pieces of thick saddle leather, patina-covered mirrors that hang from a twisted cotton cord over one’s breastplate and molded-leather rings call to mind a mini hand-shield fit for a superheroine.

Brooklyn-based Jung took the concept of self-protection one step further, telling us that she selected a circle as the central shape running through her collection because it has been a symbol of defense throughout history in various cultures. The beautifully clouded, aged mirrors come from Brooklyn as well. The artist responsible for hand-antiquing them is extremely protective of his methods, Jung explains, recalling an instance in which he nearly banned her from his studio for trying to take his picture.

Pieces range from $66-$363 and are available online at Brook&Lyn.
See the collection in this haunting video lookbook.

Artists transform NYC’s rooftop water towers to raise awareness about conservation

With less than 1% of all fresh water on Earth safe for human consumption—a number that works out to around 200,000 km3 of water—the truth about the world’s available supply is frightening. To draw attention to the urgency of water conservation, the not-for-profit Word Above The Street is working with an array of artists who will wrap 300 of NYC’s beloved water towers in a museum-in-the-sky mission aptly dubbed The Water Tank Project. Curated by Lisa Dennison, Neville Wakefield and a host of other industry buffs, artists already signed on for the 2013 endeavor include Ed Ruscha, Tim Maguire, Tony Oursler and Mark Sheinkman.

After the three-month stint in NYC, Word Above The Street plans to take the project around the world to cities like Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Mexico City and beyond. Those living outside of NYC or the project’s future locations can still experience the art through the nonprofit’s forthcoming app and other online media.

Supporters can back the project by shopping at Whole Foods in Manhattan on 1 March 2012, when 5% of sales will benefit The Water Tank Project, or by donating online through Paypal. Keep up to date with the project by following TWTP on Twitter.

In my experience, routines are an essential component to an uncluttered life. Without a few minutes of dedicated work each day, housework and clutter quickly build up and create stress. Small steps each day keep everything under control and ultimately give you more free time to focus on the things that matter most to you.

Fifteen years ago, I was someone who let things fall apart during the week and then spent a good portion of my Saturdays cleaning up all the messes I had made during the week. This meant that every Saturday morning and some afternoons were wasted. I couldn’t meet friends for brunch or read a book or whatever relaxing task I would have rather been doing. When I traveled over a weekend, it meant that I returned home to a place as messed up as I had left it and then I would have two weeks’ worth of cleanup to do the next Saturday. It also meant I would never have people over during the week because dirty dishes would be on the kitchen counter, dirty clothes would be spilling out of my hamper, and so many other things would be in disarray. During the week, everything was not in its place.

After my initial uncluttering and organizing spree, I knew I had to change my ways and figure out new daily routines to keep my home and office organized. I won’t lie to you, it took a lot of practice, and there are times now when I’ll miss a day here and there. Overall, though, daily routines have made maintaining an organized life incredibly simple and I no longer carry stress about the state of my home. That feeling of calm is very important to me now, and I have no desire to abandon it.

Since we’ve talked a great deal on the site about creating routines (e.g. articles 1, 2, 3), I won’t go into too much detail in this post about that stage of the process. However, I do want to discuss when to do the actions on your routines list.

We all have different times of the day when we have energy to do chores and when we don’t. Our motivation levels change throughout the day, too. Knowing yourself and when you are most likely to get daily chores done is key to choosing when to do your routines.

• Before work. I function my best in the morning, and only want to do relaxing stuff after the sun goes down. As a result, I have to do the majority of my housework in the morning before sitting down at my desk to work. The same is true for my husband, so we unload the dishwasher, put a load of laundry into the washer, and put away stray items from around the house before we start work. We do these chores in addition to bathing and getting ready, getting our son fed and ready for his day, and eating breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen afterward. It means we have early mornings, but it also means our evenings are relaxing and light on chores. (Since we both work from home, we put the laundry in the dryer around 10:00 a.m. and then fold it and put it away during our lunch break.)
• Throughout the day. If you work from home, you can set up chores to take place for 10 minutes every couple hours to give you a break from work. This is much more difficult to do if you work in an office.
• Immediately after work. If you’re not a morning person, I strongly recommend doing your daily routines right when you get home from work. This way, once you’re done with dinner, you can relax and focus on doing what matters to you. Plus, you’re more likely to have energy at 5:30 p.m. (or whenever you get home) than you are closer to when you go to bed.
• After dinner. If everyone in your family comes home at different times, daily routines might have to be completed after dinner when everyone is in the house and can lend a hand. You’re more likely to avoid your routines because you’re tired, but if you have the motivation you can still get them done. My friend Julie reports that she will incorporate her daily chores into her nightly television watching. Instead of fast-forwarding through commercials with her DVR, she lets them play and races to get a chore done while the commercials play.

Try doing your daily routines at different times to determine which one works best for you. When do you have the most energy and motivation to do the little stuff you need to do every day, so you can spend the majority of your time doing what matters to you?

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Our interview with barista champion and Dublin coffee bar owner Colin Harmon

Three-time Irish barista champion Colin Harmon loves Dublin. We got a taste of his infectious enthusiasm for the city on a recent tour of his two Third Floor Espresso (3FE) coffee bars there—one in the Twisted Pepper building, where it serves as a cafe by day and cocktail lounge for the music venue at night, and the newer 3FE location on Lower Grand Canal Street.

While he was working on opening 3FE, Harmon turned down numerous offers in other European cities in favor of staying in his beloved hometown. This emotional decision propelled him into becoming a leader in the burgeoning community of food makers and entrepreneurs in Dublin.

We recently talked to Harmon about his coffee journey while driving around Dublin in the 3FE delivery vehicle, gleaning insight on the 3FE company and his goals to be an ambassador for the city he loves.

What aspects of 3FE do you feel are uniquely Irish?

I do some traveling as part of my work and every time I meet people from another country they say, “Oh, it must be so bad there with the economy and the recession and everything.” You read terrible things about the city and the country and what’s happened, but ultimately life goes on. You can see there are still buses driving around and still people going to work and getting on with it. That’s the ethos of what 3FE is about. We started with very little money. We started with just enough money to get a decent espresso machine and some good coffee.

How did you raise the money to buy the espresso machine?

I sold my car. It was very much “spend the money where you need to, then bootstrap from there.” So we make a little, we spend a little. I suppose it’s a very Irish way of doing things.

How much does 3FE’s home influence the way things are done?

Irish people are very good at starting off with what you have, putting your head down and getting on with it. I think doing it in a friendly and approachable way means everything to us—engaging people, talking to them and making them feel welcome. At 3FE we feel like we are ambassadors for the city. We have a lot of tourists coming in who have been recommended by friends. We are proud Dubliners and want to show people that we might not be the richest city in the world, but we still can do things right. We want to work hard and have a good time as well.

How did you get the Twisted Pepper space?

Before this I worked in finance. I was a trustee officer for a professional investment fund. I was very well paid. I tried to quit five times and they kept shouting bigger numbers at me to make me stay. Finally I left my job and decided I wanted to find something I love doing. I fell into coffee. I got a job at Coffee Angel that is owned by 2006 Irish barista champion Karl Purdy. And after six months with coffee, I won the Irish Barista Championships. That year I finished fourth in the world.

And at that time, you had bought the machine and it was in your apartment?

Yeah. I had set up a competition training room in my third-floor apartment. Then I did a lot of traveling for about a year, but I wanted to stay in Dublin. I am a Dubliner. I wanted to be here, so I started to look for a shop. Not having the budget to open a retail store I was kind of hamstrung. I then met Trevor O’Shea who owns Bodytonic Music and runs the Bernard Shaw on the South Side, and the Twisted Pepper on the North Side. Trevor was trying to get people in during the day. So he said, “Why don’t you come in, set up a coffee shop, and when you are making money you can pay the rent.” It gave us a hand-up. The banks had been laughing at me. It was the only serious offer we had.

How did you decide on a coffee to serve at 3FE?

We only serve Has Bean, whose owner, Steve Leighton, is my business partner at 3FE. Steve started Has Bean about nine years ago. He originally had a shop, but decided to focus on roasting. We met just before the World Championships in 2009 when I began looking for someone to roast my coffee as I was representing Ireland. Steve was the first person I contacted and he was so accommodating and supportive. We’ve been thick as thieves ever since.

So we started 3FE. And it literally was one cup at a time. We were serving maybe 15-20 cups of coffee a day, but the next day it would be 25 and the day after that would be 30 cups. Be nice to people. Make good coffee. Hopefully they will come back and bring a friend. Soon we got too busy for the front porch at Twisted Pepper and we had to move in to the main bar. Last September we opened our second shop on Lower Grand Canal Street. We also supply other coffee shops in the city and train their staff. We now employ 14 people—two chefs and 12 baristas.

What’s on the 3FE menu?

We split our menu into two sections: a tasting menu and a drinking menu. The drinking menu is for people who just want a cup of coffee. If somebody comes in and orders from the tasting menu, we understand that they are there to experience something. They’d like a sample or to learn something about the farm. The coffees change every week. When you order a trio on the tasting menu, you get the same coffee beans made as an espresso, a cappuccino and a filter coffee. It’s a good way to get to know a very distinct coffee. The other one that is popular for us is the filter tasting. We serve two different coffees side by side. We do hand pours. We always make two very different types of coffee. We might serve a washed Kenyan next to a pulped natural Brazilian.

For our hand pours, we use a Marco Uber Boiler that is made here in Dublin. We also have a Marco batch brewer. For espresso, we use the Aurelia Nuova Simonelli. It’s the competition machine. We have one in both of our stores.

You get some famous fans?

We get a lot of people who are coffee daytrippers. One day these guys came in a sat down at the bar. They said that they would like to taste something interesting, and had a few hours to spare so I told them they could sit there and I would feed them tasters of everything and that at the end they could pay what they thought it was worth. They seemed up for it and they seemed like nice people. I started making them espressos.

Then if I was making a filter coffee for someone else, I would give them a small cup to let them taste the thing and talk them through different flavors. Basically I had a chat with them for about three hours. In the course of this they said hey were going to Oslo soon. I suggested they go see Tim Wendelboe. I asked, “What do you do?” “We’re musicians.” I said, “Really? What is the name of your band?” They said, “We are Arcade Fire. Have you heard of us?” My jaw dropped at this stage.

They’ve become very good friends of ours at the shop. They often email us from different cities and ask our advice for where to go. We have sent them to cafes in Croatia and Copenhagen and everywhere in between. Every time they come back to Dublin they do a coffee tasting with us.

How do you respond to people who ask, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a drink”?

It is just a drink, but I think at the core of everything that is generic there can be something amazing. So you could take something like lasagna—why would I order a lasagna? But there is definitely a place to go where the lasagna will blow you away. It’s the same for ice cream, same for stout, same for whiskey. I think that engaging people with something as common as a cup of coffee, but making it amazing—how incredible that can be.

Cate&Nelson ha disegnato questa seduta formata da un monoblocco piegato e assemblato.