100 Days.

For 100 consecutive days – October 30, 2008 to February 6, 200 – Rachel Berger picked a paint chip out of a bag and responded with a short write up associated with the selected color.

I’m sort of obsessed with Rachel’s 100 Days project for a few reasons. First, I have a thing with collecting paint chips like mad. Second, I find it so interesting that color can evoke memories. I’m seeing a possible 2010 New Year’s resolution emerge as I type…

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365 Days.

November 17, 2008 Amy Mortimer started her 365 Days project. One photograph a day for an entire year. And the results are really beautiful. I’m impressed with the level of dedication an undertaking such as this requires as well as the diversity in the photographs from day to day. Not to even mention the willingness to be transparent and show off your life in such a way. Beautiful.



:: via Housemartin

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Fallen Princesses.

I love seeing the flip side of the typical fairytale in the Fallen Princesses project from Dina Goldstein and JPG Magazine. Just goes to show, not even princesses are perfect…








“These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The ‘…happily ever after’ is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues.”

“The project was inspired by my observation of three-year-old girls, who were developing an interest in Disney’s Fairy tales. As a new mother I have been able to get a close up look at the phenomenon of young girls fascinated with Princesses and their desire to dress up like them. The Disney versions almost always have sad beginning, with an overbearing female villain, and the end is predictably a happy one. The Prince usually saves the day and makes the victimized young beauty into a Princess.”

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a little me.

This made me smile. It brightened my day from halfway around the globe. Just knowing that there’s someone this nice and kind-hearted out there is refreshing.

Toni of modern day pioneers is on a mission to share a little piece of herself with whomever wants it. Visit her blog, click on her profile and email her your address. You’ll be added to her ongoing list of people in line to get a little something from her in Australia. Maybe some sweets, maybe a craft, maybe anything little at all. For nothing. Just because she’s that nice and her heart is that big.

:: via Operation Nice

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Free Encouragement.

I’m all about spreading the love. Because honestly nothing makes you feel better about yourself and than making someone else’s day. Or even just making them smile.

That’s only one of the reasons I’m digging Free Encouragement postcards, a collaboration between Booooooom and Design for Mankind guaranteed to knock out negativity. Head over to their shop to pick up a set or two and admire the works of collaborating artists like Jen Collins, Gemma Correll and Dennis de Groot! Check out the background story here.

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Things We Forget.

I adore projects like this. Unexpected kindness. Uplifting reminders. Two things you can’t go wrong with in this world today. The project and subsequent photos take place in Singapore, but I think every city needs it.



:: via pecannoot
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We Feel Fine.

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale engineered by Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar. I could spend hours pouring over the beautiful words and images.
“Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.”

“At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

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Before I die I want to…

Love this.

The Before I die I want to… project was inspired by a combination of factors: (1) the “death” of the Polaroid, (2) a psychologist’s tool called safety contracts, and (3) a passion to get people to think about (and act upon) what is really important in their life through this simple, very straight-forward question.

Process
Creators, Nicole Kenney (Brooklyn, NY) and ks rives (Chicago, IL) keep their Polaroid cameras close at hand, taking portraits wherever they go to add to the collection. They snap the photo while the subject is saying what they want to do before they die, getting them in the act of stating their desire. Nicole and ks then request that the subject writes his or her statement on the Polaroid starting with the words “Before I die I want to….” As the subjects are signing the release form, the artists ask them to include their email.

The website is updated continuously with new portraits.

In a number of years (five, ten, twenty, etc.), Nicole and ks will contact the participants via email to see if they have accomplished their goal, if they are on their way, or why they haven’t made steps in that direction. At this future time, Nicole and ks will ask them to write a short story next to their photo on the website about fulfilling their expressed want. Seeing online that other people are fulfilling their desires will motivate participants to complete their task and write a story of their own.

:: via Josh Spear

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