Bamana Boli Figures


Bamana Boli
Bamana Boli
Bamana Boli
Bamana Boli
Bamana Boli

I saw one of these at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. [Ed. Note: The University played a major role in the sparsity of posts in the last two years.] I think they are lovely. They’re made from “organic materials,” which includes dirt, blood, beer, millet, and anything else, really.

These figures are assembled from diverse organic materials over a wooden core. They are thought to symbolize the universe and to harness spiritual power. Called Boli, they are placed on altars.

via Hamill again

Baga Protective Serpents


Baga

Baga

Baga


Baga Protective Serpents


The serpent or snake from the Baga tribe of Guinea is used to ward off evil spirits at initiation ceremonies of young men, as well as to protect the village from evil spirits. Often these tall sculptures would be worn by dancers as a head or shoulder-supported figure.

from africanart.com

Egungun Headdress


Yoruba Egungun

Yoruba Egungun

Egungun Headdress


The word Egungun refers to masking associated with honored male lineage ancestors. While each mask has a personal name, it does not usually refer to a specific ancestor. Rather, Egungun masks embody the “collective force of the ancestors. All of the Egungun in a community appear annually during a joyful festival that celebrates the distinguished dead. During the festival, the ancestors bless the living, promote physical and spiritual health, settle disputes, enforce tradition and morality, and cleanse the community of witchcraft.

from African Shapes of the Sacred: Yoruba Religious Art by Carol Ann Lorenz, Senior Curator, Longyear Museum of Anthropology, Colgate University.

via Hamill Gallery, Boston

ONull

ONull is written in Java and uses Processing as a graphical engine. Awesome vector generator that rasterizes an image to give you a vector output file. You can choose the squares, crosses, circles, etc. or you can import your own vector to use as the “pixels.” Excellent tool.


Self portrait using ONull + gCircle logo

Recycled Houses

The New York Times ran a slideshow of homes built by Dan Phillips. Mr. Phillips creates houses from salvaged materials ranging from branches to corks to wine bottles to picture frames. These are apparently low-income homes somewhere in Huntsville, TX but they look phenomenal. (Thanks for the tip, Molly.)


Cork Floor

Wine Bottle Windows

Picture Frame Ceiling

Honda Motocompo


Motocompo

Honda’s Motocompo was a 49cc two-stroke scooter that was designed to fit into the trunk of the Honda City back in 1981-83. It folds up into a little rectangle and it really lovely. The ad campaign at the time featured London ska band, Madness, and the marketing photos are priceless.


Motocompo

Motocompo

Motocompo

Hetchins

Needed to put this up. Beautiful English frameworks. Apparently, in the days of PRO cycling yore, frame-builders couldn’t put their marques on their race bicycles. A frame-builder eager to have their bicycles stand out from the crowd in the PRO peleton would have to have a high performance race bicycle with distinctive and unique geometry. Hetchins accomplished this with the curly chainstays as far back as 1932 and it became a trademark feature of the company that holds to this day.


Hetchins script transfer



Hetchins



Hetchins

LOT-EK Architecture Firm

Really like the work of LOT-EK, particularly the renovation of the Miller-Jones Studio. My favorite bit is the bedroom storage wall comprised entirely of bent sheet metal office storage units from flat files to lockers to cabinets. As austere as it is playful.


LOT-EK Miller-Jones Studio


LOT-EK Miller-Jones Studio


LOT-EK Miller-Jones Studio

1947 (yes, really!) Nissan Tama Electric Vehicle


1947 Nissan Tama


22 MPH top speed with a range of 40 miles.

The Art of the Brilliant Product Extension


Vanilla Pit Boot

Vanilla Pit Boot in Action

Vanilla Bicycles, a custom hand-built bicycle framebuilder, is known for doing everything right. They have raised the bar with Vanilla-branded pit boots for the cyclocross aficionado. Well played.