This music video isn’t the first of its kind, but it’s a current favorite in our house.

A song for your Saturday night: enjoy!

video credit: Potato

In the interest of looking ahead, we’ve been starting to plan our summer adventures. While I ponder my first ever Sperry purchase (gold or classic brown?), Jack is daydreaming about our return trip to Sturdivant Island with friends and hoping it will resemble this. (It won’t. Not quite.)

As the week winds down, take a peek at the delightful packaging for the delightful-sounding Quinetum cordial from the folks behind Hendrick’s gin, peruse Ethan Barber’s photos of Boston’s Public Garden at night (collectively posted at Pop & Circumstance, and amidst other adventures at Barber’s blog), consider 2013′s color trends as they apply to web design, and smile broadly at Jaime Moore’s birthday portraits of her daughter posed as influential women in history.

Cheers!

image credit: Quaker City Mercantile, via Lovely Package

earlier this week: 1,2,3,4,5

his jam | her jam

Yesterday was cold, rainy and basically blustery; today, highs are hoving near 80 and the sun is shining. We are so ready for some summer weather.

I’ve been catching popsicles popping up all over the place – art featuring them, stationery modeled after them, recipes for making them – and with today’s abrupt summer feel (even the grass was freshly cut along the SW Corridor this morning), a review of all things popsicle seems appropriate.

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We were supposed to be closing on a house today.

But we’re not. It’s a long, complicated story that was two months in the making, but the short version is that someone else’s oversight caused things to fall through in the eleventh hour. We’ve been a little bummed about it, a little adrift, and it’s been a little quiet around here since we got the news – but now we have a few new projects on our desks, a few visitors lined up soon, and a few more free weekends for summer adventures with friends.

Here’s to facing forward.

snippets from instagram, top to bottom, left to right: 1-Hubway to Toro; 2-Sweet Cheeks; 3,4-WINE Club Boston’s Gatsby Party; 5-Lilac Sunday; 6-running in the Fens; 7-Cambridge Cemetery; 8-Barry McGee at the ICA; 9-data visualization

I was a fan of Trevor Baum’s arrow illustration when I first came across it beside a city skyline on Pinterest.

The horizontal counterpart I later found on MATTER’s homepage seemed a perfect pairing.

For more from Trevor Baum, visit his portfolio; the arrow image may have been lost to MATTER’s archives, but their site is worth a peek.

image credits: 1-Trevor Baum, via Dribbble; 2-MATTER

Over the weekend, Jack and I stopped by the Cyberarts Gallery on a whim, and caught the interactive projection art of John Carpenter.

dandelion clock uses data mapping techniques (with which Jack is much more well-versed) and a sensor to allow the viewer to interact with the glowing sparks that resemble familiar dandelion seeds: an approach or the flick of a wrist sends them scattering about the wall before gradually resettling to the center.

This piece was incredibly fun to interact with. Other installations by Carpenter similarly engage the viewer with a silent, graphic presentation of a natural element - a simulated wheat field waves as you approach, or a wall of shadows shifts as your movements rustle imaginary leaves. For more about Carpenter’s work, including longer videos of the installations in action, visit his portfolio; to see dandelion clock in person, swing by the Boston Cyberarts Gallery.

image credit: Union Jack Creative

video credit: Union Jack Creative (on Vine)

In the backyard of my parents’ house in Pennsylvania, there’s a lilac bush. “Bush” is a bit of a misnomer – it’s really more of a lilac tree, or a forest unto itself – and every spring, we had enough lilacs to offer to the whole world, it seemed.

There are plenty of flowering plants that I like well enough, and a select few that I can’t stand, but lilacs will always have a special place in my heart, even if the average city plant seems puny. Jack and I have been to the Arnold Arboretum many times, but had never checked out Lilac Sunday; today, we took a run over to meet some friends and enjoy the staggering array of lilac varieties. (A lilac-and-hyacinth blend exists! Who knew?)

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Five minutes of laughs for your Saturday. (I want to be friends with this couple.)

video credit: The Tonight Show | and, Part 2

I definitely woke up thinking it might still be Thursday.

It’s not, so to round out your week: peruse Matt Molloy’s timelapse “photo stacks” (and read more about how he acheives the smeared sky effect), consider the implications of Blake Fall-Conroy’s Minimum Wage Machine, admire BERG’s horizonless Manhattan maps (now available in print), and if you (like me) aren’t finished with your Gatsby re-read but are headed to a showing this weekend, watch a refresher.

Happy weekending!

image credits: Matt Molloy, via Digital Photo Magazine

earlier this week: 1,2,3,4

his jam | her jam

I was puzzled by the list of materials cited for David Huycke’s Imitanulation #2: polyurethane, paint, steel, glass.

On first look, the piece brought immediately to mind Tara Donovan’s Untitled (Pins), a cube of straight pins held together by nothing but their own weight and friction, that is part of the ICA’s permanent collection. Imitanulation certainly looked to be pins as well – until further digging revealed that Huycke, a silversmith, actually used a granulation technique to imitate pins. Fascinating.

Donovan’s work, generally comprised of small, everyday objects in large quantities and unexpected arrangements, is always work a look when you have the opportunity; the piece pictured above can be seen in person in Boston at the ICA. For more from Donovan, visit the ACE Gallery; to learn more about Huycke, read his artist statement, and see other works at Artsy and MOCO LOCO.

image credits: 1-ARNOLDSCHE; 2-James Wagner