Eric – The Goods

Uncommon Knowledge: What Month is Oktoberfest?

October 1, 2015

Around the world, Oktoberfest is synonymous with beer, brass bands, free-flowing beer, jolly men in lederhosen, hearty German fare, and…strong, stick-to-your-ribs, autumnal beer. Over 200 years old, the Munich Oktoberfest has grown into a huge harvest celebration of Bavarian culture, starting the third week in September and…What the fest?! Have the Bavarians lost their murmeln? Isn’t Oktoberfest in October?

While it does wrap up on the first Sunday in October, the majority of Oktoberfesting occurs in September. Is there a method to this madness? Of course! Simply put, September weather is more conducive to the many open-air activities of Oktoberfest (with nightly lows in Munich around 50 °F, versus the chilly 40 °F of October). The first ‘Fest began on October 12, 1810, with the festive marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. But the annual autumn festival that grew out of those royal nuptials shifted to take advantage of September’s temperatures—more comfortable for strolling (or stumbling) about in Lederhosen and Dirndl dresses. And, despite the calendar, the name Oktoberfest stuck because “Late Septemberfest” just doesn’t have the same ring to it…

Glass Beer Steins – Set of 2 | $60

Maker Stories

Quirky Birds and Tin Can Telephones: The Work of Spring Hofeldt

September 25, 2015

When asked to define the type of work she does, Spring Hofeldt usually responds by saying “realism.” But she’s quick to add that the term fits the look of her paintings, but not the messages that they convey. Still, there’s a wealth of common ground to be found in her quirky portraits of ostriches, fostered fish, and romantic vegetable duos. She observes that her paintings “immerse the viewer in a metaphor of day-to-day life. Whether you’re a cynic of a sunshine, we can all relate to making light of such trials and tribulations.”

Our recent conversation with Spring sheds some more light on her spunky slices of life, the inspiration that can be found in excavators, and her love of words that include “oo.”

Untitled (Self Portrait) by Spring Hofeldt

What artists have influenced your work?

I went to school for illustration, so naturally I’ve been captivated by the work of C.F. Payne and Norman Rockwell. They made me realize how important it is to me that I capture a humorous or quirky moment. These artists illustrate the true character and essence of a person/object in such a light and wonderful way.

And more specifically, Edward Ruscha‘s large-scale painting of the word “OOF” get’s me every time.

What are other personal influences on your work?

There are so many human experiences that can be annoying, awkward, or awful. Retelling the story to others and seeing the humor in it is a great way to cope.

Your work is characterized by a certain naturalism or realism. How do you define realism?

I don’t think of myself as someone who is chasing photorealism, but rather the character of the feeling I’m after. To those few who ask me, “why put all the effort into painting a photograph you took? Why not just print the photo and call it a day?” Paint has a way of making the image extra yummy. I like being able to alter the colors or patterns with paint rather than a computer saturation. And simply, I like the challenge of painting something so real.

Squawk

What’s your favorite thing about your studio—how does the space or its contents inspire you?

My corner studio overlooks Brooklyn’s BQE and the F/G subway lines, which provide a constant sense of movement and an overall positive hum. The best aspect of the movement outside is the large, mustard yellow, claw excavators tossing metal from one pile to another at the scrap yard. It’s like a dance of mechanical dinosaurs all day long.

I also share the studio with two other artists, and although their art is very different than mine, just seeing how productive they are encourages me to get to work.

When did you first know you wanted to be an artist?

I had a good hunch when asked at age 6 or 7, but never really took it too seriously until I took an art class my last year of high school, only because I had an extra spot to fill. With spit wads flying over my head, my nose deep in graphite and colored pencils, I realized by the end of school that it was a true passion I wanted to pursue.

How do you balance creativity—painting for it’s own sake—with the business side of being a professional artist?

At this point, I’d say that I only create paintings I’m truly inspired to produce and am confident about the subject matter. Even if I take on commissions, I make sure they’re filled with character that I would normally add. This is initially why they are coming to me.

What inspired you to create your ostrich paintings?

I’m drawn to bizarre and quirky animals. Ostriches have a very powerful presence… From their towering size and quick step, to their large, bold, deep black eyes that have a lock on your every move.

Francine

What was your favorite part of that process?

Adding the fine details that really capture the animal’s character and seeing them come to life.

How do you hope people react when they receive your creation?

I hope it makes them chuckle, giggle, snort, laugh out loud, or smile on the inside.

Do you have any memorable customer feedback you’d like to share?

I have this one repeat customer that visits during every annual open studio. I love hearing her boisterous laugh filling the hallway, announcing her presence in the building. The first time I heard it was when I had hung up the set of four ostriches outside my door and she just couldn’t stop laughing. I, along with the visitors in the room at that time, couldn’t help but start laughing with her because the sound coming from the hall was so contagious. We had absolutely no idea what she was laughing at, but it didn’t matter. Moments like those are too great.

Tell us three uncommon facts about yourself.

I love to meticulously peel pomegranates by hand in my lap, sometimes taking over an hour.

I’m tickled by double o words: oof (as previously mentioned), bazooka, cooties, doozie, floozie, goober, vamoose, etc.

I chose to be married in a rowboat.

Let Me Tell You

In the copy for the Contact section of her website and in a few of her paintings, Spring employs the DIY telephone metaphor of two tin cans and a length of string. That feels like an apt metaphor for painting: communicating through imperfect means and media, but celebrating their alluring, endearing quirks in the process.

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: Will Everything Be OK?

September 14, 2015

Inspiration comes in many forms, and, if you’re like our artists, you may look to a famous phrase or line of vital verse to help keep you positive. But sometimes, such pep talks can feel less than genuine. When you feel that an obvious dose of perky poetry just won’t cut it, consider this familiar philosophical phrase: this too shall pass.

Say it aloud a few times, and you may feel a certain sense of detached calm. It’s like a Zen version of “go with the flow,” meaning that no matter how bad things get, they’re bound to turn around because all of existence is in flux. Whoa…heavy, right? But wait a minute—it gets heavier. When you really think about it, the phrase also means that no matter how good things are, they’ll change for the worse. So much for positive inspiration!

The phrase can be traced back to the Persian Sufi poets, and has since been credited to a nebulous “Eastern” king, who asked his court to provide a phrase that would smooth everything out, making him feel better when he was down, and bringing him down a notch when he was manic. Whether or not this fable has any basis in fact, the “Eastern” associations are probably thanks to the tenets of Buddhist enlightenment, which seeks release from the perceived, material world and the cycle of existence. In other words, it’s the realization that all of this stuff isn’t important, because the only constant is change…

And if that’s still too heavy for your taste, try this exuberant, marching band setting of the sentiment and turn that frown upside down!

This Too Shall Pass Paperweight | $36

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: What’s a Thing?

August 31, 2015

What’s a thing? As anyone knows, it’s anything. Literally. It’s an all-purpose word that can mean an object, an affair, a situation, a mild obsession or phobia (she’s really got a thing about spiders), or, with a capital T, a certain large, lumpy, orange member of the Fantastic Four. But here’s the thing: before it was a catch-all term, a thing—from the Old Norse þing, was a sort of democratic assembly held throughout the Viking lands of Northern Europe. Viking things were an early experiment with a representative system, allowing disputes to be settled through nonviolent mediation rather than by the bloody conflict that we tend to associate with the Vikings. The egalitarian, socialist principles of modern Sweden may be traced to the concept of the Viking thing. And while the modern concept of representative democracy has its roots in ancient Greece and the Iroquois confederacy, it also owes something to medieval Scandinavia.

So, the next time you’re going to “a thing,” think of the Vikings who first made a thing an official thing. Just don’t picture the assembled Norsemen with horned helmets… that’s an invention of the nineteenth century imagination. For the real Vikings, sporting horns just wasn’t a thing.

From Little Things Planters – Set of 3 | $45

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: What Makes a Planet ‘Just Right?

August 17, 2015

Back in the 1970s, when the search for planets outside our solar system (exoplanets) was little more than a fairy tale, astronomers surmised that Earth was the only spot in our stellar neighborhood where conditions were conducive to life—not so close to the sun that life was too hot to handle, nor so far away that life was given the permanent cold shoulder. Earth’s orbit allowed for abundant liquid water, a key ingredient for the development of life as we know it. Showing their whimsical side, those 70s scientists named this habitable zone the “Goldilocks Zone,” after the little girl who sampled the three bears’ porridge and settled on the bowl that was just right. Officially, this sweet spot of planetary hospitality is called the Circumstellar Habitable Zone, or CHZ, but Goldilocks provided a cuter and more memorable nickname.

Now that the discovery of exoplanets is in full swing, worlds in the Goldilocks Zone of other stars tend to get the most publicity, as they’re most likely to support extraterrestrial life, whether its alien bacteria or little green men. Meanwhile, discoveries here on Earth have us re-thinking the boundaries of the Goldilocks Zone itself. From microbes that flourish under Arctic ice to organisms that hang out in the scalding hot, total darkness around ocean floor volcanic vents, life can exist in places that finicky Goldilocks would have avoided altogether. For that matter, a tiny “bear” has got them all beat: the tardigrade, or “water bear.” Along with surviving in solid ice or boiling water, tardigrades can tolerate cosmic rays and the vacuum of space—conditions way outside of Goldilocks’ comfort zone. These tough little troopers prove that life is far more tolerant than the three bears’ high-maintenance home invader.

A New Day | $40.00

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: How Can Your Cat Help With a Broken Leg?

August 3, 2015

There are as many theories about why cats purr as there are types of cats (we’re lookin’ at you, T. S. Eliot). It’s common knowledge that cats purr when they’re content, like when they’re being fed or stroked, but their unique, vibrating sound may also have a specific connection to their human masters. A University of Sussex study suggests that cats may have developed a ‘soliciting’ purr to obtain food and attention from humans, similar to the co-evolutionary benefits shared between humans and dogs. But there’s another reason that early humans may have made some feline friends: domestic cats purr at a frequency of 25 – 100 vibrations per second, an ideal range for reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, relieving pain, and promoting healing in both bones and soft tissues. So, essentially, a purring kitty in the vicinity may have served as a form of furry first aid. Elephants, by the way, also make a low-pitched, purr-like sound to communicate, though you probably wouldn’t want one to sit on your lap.

Cat Tao Glasses – Set of Four | $35.00

Uncommon Knowledge

Uncommon Knowledge: What’s The Most Unusual Collection?

July 13, 2015

Collecting things is a common pastime, and each collection is as unique as its collector. If it can be collected, categorized, and obsessed over, somebody’s done it. From the familiar (dolls, comic books, snow globes) to the bizarre and unsavory (air sickness bags, toenail clippings), collectors have collected it. So what’s the most unusual collection in the world? Collectively, it must be the multiple collections of William Davies King. What does he collect? Everything. And nothing.

Chronicled in his 2008 book, Collections of Nothing, King’s accumulations of stuff are mundane but staggering in their variety—cereal boxes, tuna can labels, the patterns from the inside of security envelopes. His collecting began innocently enough, when he inherited a stamp collection. But this common collecting activity soon led to more and more esoteric and ephemeral items, crossing the line into what can only be called organized hoarding. Essentially, King was a collector of collections, and his book is a fascinating reflection on his futile efforts and his ultimate realization that he was collecting… nothing.

Cheese & Crackers Serving Board | $48.00

Maker Stories

Meet the Extraordinary Designers of the Extraordinaires® Design Studio

June 12, 2015

Groundbreaking designer Paul Rand once exclaimed, “Everything is design. Everything!”

While Rand’s declaration of design universality is sweeping and inspiring, it can also be confounding; its broad appropriation of, well, everything can stifle further conversation. If everything is design, then what’s the nature of everything? What’s so important about design? Where do you begin?

Irish designers Anita Murphy and Rory O’Connor suggest a place to begin, offering a way for curious non-designers to explore the process, challenges, and rewards of design through The Extraordinaires® Design Studio, an inviting activity kit that challenges young minds to think outside the box. Whereas Rand staked his claim to the totality of human endeavor, Murphy and O’Connor’s approach assumes nothing, first asking the most basic questions: “what is a designer?” and “why does the world need designers?”

Designers Rory O’Connor (left) and Anita Murphy (right) with their Extraordinaires Design Studio Kit

Through the guided play of their studio game and the introduction of some extraordinary “clients” (the Extraordinaires themselves, including a teenage vampire, a fairy detective, and a gentle giant), Anita and Rory invite hands-on exploration of these fundamental questions, raise many more, and encourage young designers to ask their own in a spirit of playful inquiry and empathetic discovery.

We had the pleasure of discussing the inspiration and aspirations behind the Extraordinaires with Anita and Rory in a recent conversation:

How does the Extraordinaires Studio experience differ from that of being a professional designer in the real world? What’s been simplified or enhanced here?
Many professional designers comment on how effectively we’ve captured the design process in the Extraordinaires Design Studio. We’ve presented design as a simple 3-step process, while in reality it’s a looping process, involving constant iteration for a professional designer. A key element that’s been enhanced is the Extraordinaires themselves. In the real world, a designer solves design challenges for ordinary people. In the Extraordinaires Studio, you’re tasked with helping characters with extraordinary needs—like a giant or superhero, robot or ninja—and who wouldn’t want to design a remote control for a ninja?

The Design Studio features an extensive array of bizarre characters – Extraordinaires – each of whom present a unique design challenge

Assuming the goal of the Studio isn’t necessarily to produce the professional designers of tomorrow, what are the main skills fostered or lessons learned?
Empathy is a key skill fostered in the Studio. You must design for the needs of the Extraordinaire. This involves thinking about what others want, and not just what you like…thinking about the end-user. It offers a structured approach to creative thinking and problem solving, reinforces that there is often more than one answer to any challenge, and that the key is to ask lots of questions. While we would love to inspire a new generation of designers, our real goal is simply to encourage people to look at their world in a new way, to ask questions and consider how they might make it better for themselves and for others.

Do you see this primarily as a competitive game, and if so, what does that teach about the competitive nature of design? What can this experience teach about the value of constructive critique?
The Studio is more collaborative than competitive. The only person you are competing against is yourself as you try to make each new design better than your last. When playing in a group, discussion tends to become more collaborative as players use “yes… and” feedback to add to each other’s design. In the Awards ceremony, we designed the cards so that any feedback is focused on the features of the design and not on the player.

Amateur designers collaborating on their fantastic designs

Although it coordinates with the Extraordinaires website, the Studio seems to emulate the look of a tablet or laptop, but using low-tech, analog media. Did you consider making the entire product a digital interface? What was behind the decision to make it paper and hand drawing based?
We did consider an entirely digital platform for the Extraordinaires. When we first came up with the idea, however, we made the decision to keep it as a physical toy, thereby making it more accessible to children, in a way that digital wasn’t. Many designers still swear by pen and paper for capturing ideas. There’s something powerful about the eye/hand/brain interaction that occurs when doodling on paper. Many design lecturers have also expressed their gratitude that we kept it analog. They share their frustration with too few students taking the time to capture their ideas on paper before turning to their computer. In the future, we will enhance the play experience with certain digital elements, ultimately creating a hybrid digital/analog experience. We do intend to keep the pen and paper for the foreseeable future, however!

Have you considered ways to allow players to realize their designs or inventions in three-dimensional prototypes – like connecting to 3D printing tools?
We think there’s nothing more satisfying that seeing an idea made real, in 3 dimensions. The whole ‘maker movement’ excites us greatly. We’re already exploring options on how we can support players wanting to realize their ideas in 3 dimensions.
Our background is in 3D animation, so we know only too well what a huge leap it is to take an idea on paper to a 3D model ready to print. We think a more realistic approach is to build prototypes using found materials like cardboard, construction toys, or modeling clay. This way, you can test your design and refine it before digitally modeling it and printing out parts. We say, “before you make it, design it.”

Deluxe Design Studio Kit

How does the Studio encourage players with design abilities but limited drawing skills or other ways to represent their ideas?
Design is not about being a great artist; good design is about great ideas and solutions. We encourage people to find their own way to communicate their ideas; this may be by drawing and sketching, but it could also be a written document, physical model, or video presentation. We factored this in when we created The Extraordinaires app. It allows you to record a presentation orally to accompany your design.

Can you comment on the spirit of innovation in contemporary Ireland? Did that spirit inspire any aspects of the Studio?
There’s an incredible amount happening here design-wise. In fact, 2015 is the Year of Design in Ireland! There is a large program of events planned to explore how design can really help people. This resonates strongly with us.

Being from Ireland, which is really just a small island on the edge of Europe, we have always been grounded in our Celtic heritage of craft and storytelling, while looking externally to Europe, North America, and Asia for additional inspiration. It’s exciting for us to hear from schools in Singapore, gamers in Poland, or families in the US who play with and love our products.

Any particularly good user feedback you’d like to share?
We really value the feedback we receive from customers and fans. We’ve been told that the Studio takes children’s creativity seriously. We’ve received praise for the way it appeals to both boys and girls. In fact, some of our biggest fans are female. Others appreciate the flexibility it offers, allowing a child to play on their own away from screens or as a family in a group. Many parents have expressed their surprise at just how much they enjoyed the experience of designing for the Extraordinaires.

Our favorite feedback is that the Studio drops you into a real design experience. It breaks down the design process and combines drawing, creative thinking and fun.

The UncommonGoods team had a lot of fun designing with the kit – now Mr. Pirate can finally open his restaurant

Ready to meet the Extraordinaires and help them with some of their extraordinary design needs? Their box full of playful design challenges and fantastic fun is just a few clicks away, and no design degrees or drafting skills are required.

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