Curbside Stories

I am not into poetry but this winning piece by Lily Myers made me feel otherwise. This poem so profoundly explained how men and women differ in their views about personal image. Read on... Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles over red wine that she drinks out of a measuring glass. She says she doesn’t deprive herself, but I’ve learned to find nuance in every movement of her fork. In every crinkle in her brow as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate. I’ve realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it. I wonder what she does when I’m not there to do so. Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it’s proportional. As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast. She wanes while my father waxes. His stomach has grown round with wine, late nights, oysters, poetry. A new girlfriend who was overweight as a teenager, but my dad reports that now she’s “crazy about fruit.” It was the same with his parents; as my grandmother became frail an...

Ever wondered how many visitors you entertain in a month and how many hours you spend entertaining them? Well, better check out Dominic Wilcox's design--the Home Visitor Recorder that stores the total number of visitors, their average age, average weight, the average time they stayed, etc. Dominic Wilcox is an artist based in the UK.  His designs are inspired by everyday objects that he incorporate with wit, alternative perspective and sometimes humor.  He earned a degree in Visual Communication at Edinburgh College of Art  and he later took MA at the Royal College of Art .   To see more of Dominic Wilcox's designs, click here . 

I have found the perfect conversation piece inside any one's house.  This vase , Crokkis, is one of the many designs of Kenneth Cobonpue, an international furniture designer from Cebu, Philippines. The bent metal resembles bamboos cut at different lengths.  The holes are inserted with glass tubes that serves as the actual vase.   His designs are unique but does not sacrifice functionality.  His use of indigenous materials and mixing it with contemporary materials to form truly exceptional furniture are so brilliant, an art in itself, that his works are exported in the US, United Kingdom, Middle East and in Asian countries. To see more of his designs, click here .

When we talk of sand art, what comes first into our minds is the art of making figures using the sand on the seashore.  I first saw a video of sand art in my friend's cellphone and I was amazed by how a man's hand create lovely images using sand.  I was even more amazed when his drawings actually tell a story. I did a few research about this amazing art and I found out that what I saw was only a tip of the iceberg. Sand art or sand painting is being practiced by Indians, Tibetans, Arabs and even American Indians.  An example of Indian sand art is practiced by a famous sand painter, Ilana Yahav .  She is a world renowned sand animation artist who uses only her fingers to draw on an illuminated glass table.   Another form of sand painting is the Mandala --typically practiced by Buddhist monks.  In this form, the artist fills out a drawing using different colored sands. Symbols used in these sand paintings represent world enlightenment and respectful religious iconography. Mandal...