You may be thinking "Oh, all cupcakes are awesome". Well, they are not. See, for example, these cupcakes that are supposed to look like Stonehenge.
21.2.10
Cupcakes Cupcakes Cupcakes
Here are some of the most awesome cupcakes ever made by people. Most of these use fondant. I don't really understand fondant or what it is but I know it lets you make awesome cupcakes. I need to learn how to do that so I can make people awesome cupcakes that look like things. Imagine all of Saturn's moons, as cupcakes! Or a bunch of cupcake diatoms swimming around in a sea of icing. So many possibilities.
You may be thinking "Oh, all cupcakes are awesome". Well, they are not. See, for example, these cupcakes that are supposed to look like Stonehenge.
Moral of the story: Craft is important, otherwise your cupcakes will look like shit.
You may be thinking "Oh, all cupcakes are awesome". Well, they are not. See, for example, these cupcakes that are supposed to look like Stonehenge.
Tsilli Pines
Anyone who's met me knows that I'm kind of a mathy guy. I love numbers, and I'll pretty much find any excuse to find reason and order in everything going on around me.
Tsilli Pines' series, "The Figures", touches on that in an incredibly eloquent and subtle way, incorporating the printed page, delicate stitching, and pigment (red and black). The stitching serves as a path that allows us to traverse through the jungle of numbers and obstacles that face us on a daily basis. Choosing which path to follow, sifting through jumbled, complex information, and eventually conquering and moving past adversity are all things we, as humans, but more specifically (in this work, at least) as consumers and citizens of a wealth-based society, see throughout our lives.
Annual Report, Tsilli Pines (2007)
The question is: are we cognizant of this journey? Yes, we all hate being on hold with the bank, paying mostly interest on our mortgage payments, and fighting tooth and nail to make a living while barely getting by. All of these have to do with numbers, rates, formulae, etc., and we associate these different experiences with corresponding emotions (getting a check for +$1,000 makes Zach happy, getting a cable bill for -$120 makes Zach grumpy).
If I were to ask you what your financial picture was, maybe you'd say something like "it's okay", or perhaps you'd rattle off a list of positive and negative numbers that add up to something that you've decided is indicative of "where you are right now". But do we really know where we are, or how we got here? This is the challenge of "The Figures".
While I usually find that numbers guide me and help me find my way, in this work they served in opposition to the route I sought, something I find simultaneously frustrating and delightful. The phrases and concepts we routinely consider (which serve as her titles: "Risk Tolerance", "Bad Credit", "Balloon Payments", etc.) are visually represented by the charts, plotted graphs, familiar shapes and symbols of financial culture which we are constantly bombarded with. The circles are analogous to both the cyclic nature of finance and the possibility sets of our decisions, while the use of red and black alludes to our favorite fiscal euphemism (I've always found it fascinating how being "in the red" has become a substitute for "we're totally fucked").
Cutting Losses, Tsilli Pines (2007)
In their literal form, they make up our financial identity. But when reduced, arranged, and presented in this form, these numbers tell a story far more confusing and convoluted than I previously imagined anyone's "financial picture" could be, blurring the lines between our true financial reality and the two-dimensional world that Pines has created in this series.
After looking at and thinking about Tsilli Pine's work, I'm left wondering if all of the numbers I surround myself with are compliments or impediments to my daily life. The $2.44 (-$2.44) coffee I had this morning could have been saved, and if I repeated that on a daily basis over the course of a year, I could have almost $900 (+$890.60) saved up, which I could use to pay off a credit card (-$643.26) that I'm paying a ridiculous interest rate on (19.99% APR) when I should be putting those finance charges into my savings account (+1.4% APY) to save for retirement (~40 years away).
Thoughts like this used to give me joy, knowing that if I played the numbers right I could navigate through all of these figures and end out "on top". Work like Pines' challenges this notion, taking the numbers out of the forms we are familiar with and creating a structure which we are vaguely familiar with but inexplicably unable to escape.
So I'm left stalled in one of these drawings, looking at the numbers, and not knowing what to do with them or where to go. And for the first time in a while, I'm comforted by that discomfort, and curious how far not going anywhere will take me. And that's a pretty awesome place to be.
Tsilli Pines is a designer and artist based in Portland, Oregon.
Tsilli Pines' series, "The Figures", touches on that in an incredibly eloquent and subtle way, incorporating the printed page, delicate stitching, and pigment (red and black). The stitching serves as a path that allows us to traverse through the jungle of numbers and obstacles that face us on a daily basis. Choosing which path to follow, sifting through jumbled, complex information, and eventually conquering and moving past adversity are all things we, as humans, but more specifically (in this work, at least) as consumers and citizens of a wealth-based society, see throughout our lives.
The question is: are we cognizant of this journey? Yes, we all hate being on hold with the bank, paying mostly interest on our mortgage payments, and fighting tooth and nail to make a living while barely getting by. All of these have to do with numbers, rates, formulae, etc., and we associate these different experiences with corresponding emotions (getting a check for +$1,000 makes Zach happy, getting a cable bill for -$120 makes Zach grumpy).
If I were to ask you what your financial picture was, maybe you'd say something like "it's okay", or perhaps you'd rattle off a list of positive and negative numbers that add up to something that you've decided is indicative of "where you are right now". But do we really know where we are, or how we got here? This is the challenge of "The Figures".
While I usually find that numbers guide me and help me find my way, in this work they served in opposition to the route I sought, something I find simultaneously frustrating and delightful. The phrases and concepts we routinely consider (which serve as her titles: "Risk Tolerance", "Bad Credit", "Balloon Payments", etc.) are visually represented by the charts, plotted graphs, familiar shapes and symbols of financial culture which we are constantly bombarded with. The circles are analogous to both the cyclic nature of finance and the possibility sets of our decisions, while the use of red and black alludes to our favorite fiscal euphemism (I've always found it fascinating how being "in the red" has become a substitute for "we're totally fucked").
Cutting Losses, Tsilli Pines (2007)
In their literal form, they make up our financial identity. But when reduced, arranged, and presented in this form, these numbers tell a story far more confusing and convoluted than I previously imagined anyone's "financial picture" could be, blurring the lines between our true financial reality and the two-dimensional world that Pines has created in this series.
After looking at and thinking about Tsilli Pine's work, I'm left wondering if all of the numbers I surround myself with are compliments or impediments to my daily life. The $2.44 (-$2.44) coffee I had this morning could have been saved, and if I repeated that on a daily basis over the course of a year, I could have almost $900 (+$890.60) saved up, which I could use to pay off a credit card (-$643.26) that I'm paying a ridiculous interest rate on (19.99% APR) when I should be putting those finance charges into my savings account (+1.4% APY) to save for retirement (~40 years away).
Thoughts like this used to give me joy, knowing that if I played the numbers right I could navigate through all of these figures and end out "on top". Work like Pines' challenges this notion, taking the numbers out of the forms we are familiar with and creating a structure which we are vaguely familiar with but inexplicably unable to escape.
So I'm left stalled in one of these drawings, looking at the numbers, and not knowing what to do with them or where to go. And for the first time in a while, I'm comforted by that discomfort, and curious how far not going anywhere will take me. And that's a pretty awesome place to be.
Tsilli Pines is a designer and artist based in Portland, Oregon.
And on the 8th Day, God created Awesome.
So I've been throwing around the idea of a blog for a while. See, I'm a bit forgetful, and kind of a scatterbrain, so this will be a good way of keeping track of some of the random stuff I come across on a daily basis, in addition to highlighting the work of the good and kind people I cross paths with. Plus, I've kind of been using Facebook as a place to collect my thoughts (I actually post my grocery lists to my "About Me" section sometimes [it's handy!]) so now I won't annoy people as much with spontaneous thoughts about dinosaurs, lasers, space travel, or any combination of the former.
I'm approaching this as a long list of things that I like, that maybe (hopefully) you'll like, so I can look back 10 years from now when I'm taking a sick day from work (if I've still got it) and kill 5 or 6 hours looking at cool stuff while in my jammy-jams (palm trees in summer, robots in fall and spring, reindeer when it's snowing). If you know about something cool, let me know, because I think that we should all enjoy cool things together. Maybe you can learn something from me, and I can learn something from you, and then we can high five each other and all will be swell.
I'm 27, I work in photography, I live in Boston, and I get to be around some pretty terrific people every day. The world is an amazing place, it totally boggles the mind how much cool shit is going on, and life is so, so good.
Let's do this.
I'm approaching this as a long list of things that I like, that maybe (hopefully) you'll like, so I can look back 10 years from now when I'm taking a sick day from work (if I've still got it) and kill 5 or 6 hours looking at cool stuff while in my jammy-jams (palm trees in summer, robots in fall and spring, reindeer when it's snowing). If you know about something cool, let me know, because I think that we should all enjoy cool things together. Maybe you can learn something from me, and I can learn something from you, and then we can high five each other and all will be swell.
I'm 27, I work in photography, I live in Boston, and I get to be around some pretty terrific people every day. The world is an amazing place, it totally boggles the mind how much cool shit is going on, and life is so, so good.
Let's do this.
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