Grouped LEGO beams for five legs of my strandbeest. Having built three legs already, I’m now looking to maximize the efficiency of constructing the remaining ones.
Category: Living
Unwinding the Mystery of Strandbeests
Posted Unwinding the Mystery of Strandbeests. Dutch kinetic sculpture artist Theo Jansen’s wind-powered strandbeests are the inspiration for my next LEGO project.
Unwinding the Mystery of Strandbeests
Dutch kinetic sculpture artist Theo Jansen’s wind-powered strandbeests are the inspiration for my next LEGO project. From 1990 onwards, he has taken these strand (Dutch for beach) creatures through twelve periods of evolution. Inspired, I want to build thematically similar creatures using LEGO.
Pillsbury A Mill: Supporting Creativity
Walked down the alley behind the former Pillsbury A Mill. Completed in 1881, it was once the largest flour mill in the world. The reinforcements visible on the right were added to address the vibrations from the milling machines, which threatened to shake the structure apart. Today, the building has been transformed into a community of residential artists’ lofts.
Metamorphoses
Walking along, I came across a former inauthentic Japanese structure and restaurant, now reskinned and reinvented as a drag cabaret and 24-hour diner. The metamorphosis sparked a question in my mind as I continued my walk: what would my drag name be?
Multiple Realities
At the Walker Art Center today: “Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s,” artists who pushed boundaries under communism. The threats faced by our current system share unsettling parallels, whether it’s the targeting of sexual minorities, the suppression of inconvenient historical truths, “alternative facts,” or attempts to control access to information.
Not for Everyone
On my walk, turned into Lunds and Byerlys where three treats called my name: Spam (a Musubi must-have, but best not to dwell on the ingredient list), pickled herring, and English marmalade with just two ingredients—Seville oranges and sugar.
Trading Hygge for the Blues
Woke up this mornin’, expecting a day of hygge as the cold spell winds down. Then friends on the mend from COVID passed on tickets to us for blues artist Keb’ Mo’ at the Dakota Jazz Club. This eight-time Grammy award winner was new to us but not to the sold-out audience.
Finding Hygge
Bitterly cold outside, Dwight baking banana bread and cornbread, me curled up with a murder mystery novel set in Osaka.
Ready for Takeoff
The LEGO gantry crane is no more; all its constituent parts are now carefully stowed, awaiting the takeoff of a yet-to-be-determined new project.