inspiration

By far one of my favorite talks this year at TED. Very truthful, deep, and well spoken…and illustrated! A must watch!!

“By turn hilarious and haunting, poet Shane Koyczan puts his finger on the pulse of what it’s like to be young and … different. “To This Day,” his spoken-word poem about bullying, captivated millions as a viral video (created, crowd-source style, by 80 animators). Here, he gives a glorious, live reprise with backstory and violin accompaniment by Hannah Epperson.

Shane Koyczan makes spoken-word poetry and music. His poem “To This Day” is a powerful story of bullying and survival, illustrated by animators from around the world.”

 

A very inspirational outgoing talk by Amanda Palmer at TED this year! Simply Awesome lady.

“Don’t make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.

Alt-rock icon Amanda Fucking Palmer believes we shouldn’t fight the fact that digital content is freely shareable — and suggests that artists can and should be directly supported by fans”

via TED

Perhaps one of my favorites talks this year at TED…Ron says it all. Plant Some Shit!

“Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where “the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.”

Ron Finley grows a nourishing food culture in South Central L.A.’s food desert by planting the seeds and tools for healthy eating.”

via TED

“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.”

Allen Savory via TED 

Very cool project at OneWorldFutbol.com where they built  “a virtually-indestructible ball that never goes flat and never needs a pump. Our goal is to bring the joy of soccer and play to youth in disadvantaged communities so that children can be children no matter where they live.”

Making Play Power.

I already bought a few! Buy a yellow or blue one here…or just donate!
Watch some great videos of them trying to destroy it. (truck drives over, it, let a Lion play with it, stab it with a knife a few times, or all 3)

“C.J. Huff is the superintendent of Joplin, Mo., schools who led his district of thousand of employees and students through the recovery effort that followed the infamous Joplin tornado. “We had children in the rubble…and there is no worse feeling in the world,” he said about the moments after the storm. “I can tell you, at this time in my life, I had 7,747 kids that I was responsible for, and I could only account for my two children.”

 

via poptech

“Boxer Claressa Shields, age 17, clawed her way out of hardscrabble Flint Michigan to win the first ever Olympic gold medal for women’s middleweight boxing. She has won 31 fights — and lost only one. “That fight made me work so much harder when I got back to the gym, even though I cried and I was sad. It made me hungrier.””

via poptech 

Wow, this is breathtaking and beautiful…drawing with molten lava on paper to burn to draw. My favorite part is when she whisks the molten lava forming slivers of torched thin glass on the paper which comes awfully close to her shoes which happens often.  Seems like something from a martial arts movie for a weapon that you cant block…

 

“Artist Etsuko Ichikawa’s searing creations spring to life in 2100°/451°, a spellbinding film by Alistair Banks Griffin for The Anthropologist.”

More on Etsuko at theanthropologist.net/#/IntoTheFire

This is beautiful hand drawn type! This is something that is lacking in the digital type world though hopefully we get this humbleness and humaness in the art and craft of type back into it soon.

“Tracing the rounded lines of cursive on worksheets was a fundamental part of exercise in grade school–one that may soon become obsolete, as pen and paper are replaced by keyboards and screens. Job Wouters (a.k.a. Letman), a graphic designer based in Amsterdam, is on a one-man mission to sustain the dying medium of hand lettering, churning out meticulously executed forms that pay tribute to the versatility and beauty of good penmanship.”

via fastcompany