Hasta La Ideas

Collages of cauliflower sunsets, horse gibberish and bikini babes

Piecing together scenes from dreams and reruns of Twin Peaks and The Twilight Zone, Welsh collage and mixed-media artist Laura Redburn creates vibrant vignettes on paper under the moniker Cardboard Cities. Her portfolio flows like a nostalgic scrapbook tinted with just the slightest hint of patina, but pierced with bright colors to enhance the otherworldly scenes.

Part of the appeal of collage work lies in its reconfiguration of the banal, and Redburn’s process speaks to her ability to shift reality into something a bit more magical. “Often when I’m watching something,” she says, “I have trouble focusing on what’s happening because I’m so distracted by the scenery, or the colors in the shot, or just the way the shot has been composed.” As a result, we’re introduced to aerial cityscapes overlaid with geometric patterns, sunbathers with fried-egg heads, poshly dressed partygoers watching a cauliflower sunset over a mountain range, lavender horses rolled out in rows and chopped-up text spelling out an alien abduction.

Cardboard Cities prints are available online from $18. To see more of Redburn’s work and follow her blog, visit her website.

Reader Lee submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I work at an agency that has about 20 staff. In early July we will be renovating our space and most staff will have to pack up their offices to prepare for the renovations …

Without coming across as militant, how can I help my co-workers through the uncluttering process? I’m forever pointing out that they hold onto things they no longer need. For example, many of the print resources they hold onto are available on-line.

Also:
We have the ability to scan and store documents.
We have a client database where some information can be stored.
We have a pretty good timeline for the packing-up process.
We are renting Frogboxes to pack things into.

Lee, I’m oddly giddy for you and this experience. It’s so rare for an organization to have an opportunity for everyone to unclutter on company time.

The first thing I would do is help your coworkers to learn how to scan documents. If you’re in human resources, you can send out an email inviting everyone to a training session in a conference room and offer snacks (people like snacks). If you’re not in human resources, I’d still hold an information training session for your team. Suggest your boss get everyone lunch and hold the informal training session while you all eat. Even if everyone says they know how to scan documents and file them on the network, simply suggest it’s a refresher course to help speed up the process as they tackle their paper piles before the move. A training session also indirectly lets your coworkers know that the expectation is that they will get rid of some of their paper before the move.

Next, I would set a schedule for everyone on your team (or at the agency, if you’re in HR) to tackle group projects together. If your team shares a group filing system, schedule a two-hour time block when everyone on the team will help to sort, purge, and/or pack these shared materials. By having these set group activities on the calendar, you will be able to train everyone on how to unclutter. As a result, these group experiences can then help to encourage individual behaviors when your coworkers are working on their personal spaces.

Also, I’d communicate that there are a limited number of Frogboxes (such a cool service, I would like to add) and that people will only be able to pack what can fit into the boxes. If you’re in HR, you will know exactly how many boxes each person will get for his office and you can share that exact number. If you’re not in HR, just stay vague and say things like, “since we’re limited in how many boxes we can have to store our personal office items, learning how to scan nonessential documents is valuable.” This isn’t a lie — there is a limit of how many boxes Frogboxes will be providing to your company — you just might be implying there won’t be any exceptions, which there probably will be.

Honestly, I doubt anyone will think you’re a militant since all you’ll be doing is encouraging others to unclutter. As long as you stay positive and offer to help other people, I think your efforts will be well received. Avoid walking around and patrolling your coworkers, as it’s ultimately up to them what they decide to keep and purge. Simply encourage and train and hope for the best.

Thank you, Lee, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Good luck with the office move and don’t forget to check the comments for even more suggestions from our readers.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

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

Biomimicry spawns edible packaging for food and cocktails

In an innovative approach to consuming with minimal waste, Harvard Professor David Edwards and his team have developed WikiCells, self-contained, edible packaging for liquids, mousses and emulsions. The membrane that houses the various WikiCells flavors is made from vegetal elements, with a taste deliberately paired to match its contents. What started as an experiment to reduce the waste from packaging on food delivered to impoverished areas in Africa has expanded to focus on the significant impact of food packaging on pollution caused by mass consumption. With such far-reaching ideas in mind, the company launches today with the announcement of the newly introduced WikiCocktail and Wiki IceCream.

The gelatinous skin of the WikiCell, while for the most part created from natural particles, does have some hard science in the form of biochemical polymer chitosan and alginate, or algae extract. The hard shell of the WikiCells, which protects the form and prevents breakage, is made either from bagasse, a fibrous residue from sugar cane, or from isomalt, a sweetener. WikiCells can be washed like a piece of fruit, eliminating the need for extraneous packaging. Edwards began his work with yogurts and mousses, and has now produced his first alcoholic product in the form of the WikiCocktail, which suspends cointreau in a skin made from orange zest.

While the notion of incorporating this technology into mass food production remains pretty far in the future, the WikiCells team have realized their aim of bringing this technology to life and, if their work continues to grow, the implications for its impact on waste reduction could be quite significant. Some will find it ironic that advanced molecular gastronomy is required to fulfill this kind of biomimicry, but skeptics should note that the WikiCell system has no limits in terms of contents, potentially hosting anything from nutrition packs for developing countries to high-end desserts (for the latter market, Wiki IceCream is a creamy delight protected by a hard chocolate shell). The notion that foods should be self-contained may seem like an obvious one, and the company points to the grape as a perfect example of what WikiCells is attempting to be.

WikiCells are also available in WikiCheese, WikiYogurt and WikiFruit as part of the ever-evolving project from Paris-based Le Laboratoire, which under Edwards’ direction has produced other innovative designs such as CellBag, Le Whif and Aeroshot.

Wiki Cocktails and other WikiCells creations will be available at the Lab Store Paris this Fall, and from there will make their stateside debut in Boston in 2013.

Exclusive photographic series “Caps” and “Payphones”

Dirk Westphal has worked in several mediums throughout his career, putting images of goldfish on surfboards and creating copious volumes of collages, but he is probably best known for his photography, and his ability to combine of images and objects that explore and convey what he calls “perceptions of beauty” in society.

Westphal now becomes the latest addition to the designer roster at Maison 24, which will exclusively debut the artist’s latest works. The store will unveil two new photographic series, four pieces from Westphal’s “Caps” and three “Payphone” works. Only seven of each has been produced as large-scale C prints, reverse-mounted on Lucite.

Westphal’s newest exploration of color has come to fruition in a body of plastic caps that his wife and two sons have been collecting for the past three years. Four color stories in blue, white, red, and green create a vibrant, monochromatic punch using repurposed caps of different shapes and sizes.

“Payphones” marks Westphal’s compilation of photos of graffitied booths that he took in the early ’90s, possibly presuming the impending uselessness of the invention in the coming modern age.

Both series will be unveiled at Maison 24 Bridgehampton store 15 June 2012. “Payphones” are priced from $6,000 and “Caps” from $7,800 each.

Years ago I worked as a special needs teacher, creating and implementing educational goals for students with autism and other developmental delays. It was an amazing experience and, in many ways, has affected the way I manage projects and tasks today. A few tricks I learned back then now help to keep me productive and confident, even when my project list is overwhelming.

Break It Down

My students, being individuals, performed best under teaching conditions tailored to their abilities. We’d identify their strengths and areas of need and go from there. I also found that certain methods benefited a large number of students, including the practice of breaking complex tasks down into small, sequential steps. Once the first step was learned, the second step was introduced. After that, the third, fourth, and so on. Eventually, many of our students could perform all of the small steps in succession, thereby completing a larger task. Today, I use this technique when devising the steps that must be completed before I can mark a project as “done.” Here are two examples:

Learning to tie one’s shoe is challenging for most kids. However, the individual steps that lead to a properly tied shoe are simple:

1. Hold one lace in each hand.
2. Cross the laces to form an “X.”
3. Grasp the center of the “X” with the thumb and index finger of the right hand.
4. Push the left lace through the opening at the bottom of the “X.”

You get the idea. While “tie your shoes” is tricky, “hold one lace in each hand” is not. The same goes for the projects we must complete in our personal and professional lives. “Get ready for the conference” is complex and possibly overwhelming. If you’re like me, you’ll avoid something so daunting. To make it more manageable, identify some of the steps that must be completed before this project can be marked as “done.”

1. Add date and time of conference to calendar.
2. Make appointment to have car serviced prior to travel.
3. Pre-load travel route on GPS map.
4. Brainstorm presentation ideas.
5. Devise outline from brainstorm session.
6. Review outline, expand upon it.
7. Write first draft of presentation.
8. Etc.

There are two things to notice here. First, each small task is easily accomplished and leads to the next one. Also notice that every task on the list starts with an action verb.

Action Steps

The key to burning through your to-do list is clearly defining what must be done. “The presentation” is not a good action step. “Write first draft of presentation” is. The difference is that the first word is a verb. In fact, all of the steps listed above start with a verb. Try it when writing your own to-do lists. It’s great to know exactly what must be done.

What is a Project?

David Allen defines a project as “anything that requires more than one action step to be completed” (is my fascination with David Allen obvious yet?). This means that things we might not consider projects actually are projects. In my example above, get ready for the conference, definitely is. But so is getting an oil change for the car or volunteering for a 3rd grade field trip to the beach. Going back to my days as a teacher, I’d break down the oil change project like this:

1. Review calendar to identify free days.
2. Call favorite mechanic’s shop to make appointment.
3. Travel to garage on given day and time.

The beach trip would look like this:

1. Confirm availability on target day.
2. RSVP to teacher request.
3. Buy sunscreen.
4. Clean out cooler in basement.
5. Gas up the car.

Breaking projects into small, easily achieved tasks is beneficial in many ways. First, it makes a big project seems less daunting. It also allows you to clearly define exactly what must be done, and provides a real sense of being on top of things.

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