Lighter than air.

via National Geographic

This is the Frost King. A giant tetrahedral kite made out of silk and wood, one of many designed by a man who was obsessed with tetrahedral kites -Alexander Graham Bell.

I simply love this photo. It is a frozen moment of men running away as a kite is about to fall.

Bell came to the conclusion that tetrahedron (four-sided object whose sides and base are triangles) is an object that is structurally very strong but at the same time very lightweight. So he kept experimenting with different designs of tetrahedral kites.He loved to watch them fly, especially on a sunny day.

via National Geographic

This is the Wheel Kite. It was one of Bell's favorite kite shapes and I have to say, mine too. Bell kept records of every kite experiment. He drew sketches, wrote down everything and took snapshots of kites being lifted in the air.

Now fast forwarding to our time to someone who was impressed and inspired by Bell's tetrahedral kites.

photos by Matt Porteous

 Artists Heather and Ivan Morison created this magical cube kite in collaboration with London architectural designer Sash Reading and design studio Queen and Crawford.

This flying sculpture called "Little shining man" was hand assembled from more than 23 000 individual components.  It took 16 months to complete Little shining man and beautiful film was made as part of this project.

Little Shining Man from Queen & Crawford on Vimeo.

blue.

Charles Bukowski's " Bluebird" visualized by Monika Umba:

Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

via Moving Poems

Still in the mood for knitwear

This time different kind of knitwear.

Have you heard of yarn bombing? It's a form of street art which doesn't include spray paint but knitting. Knitting over trees, bicycles, people, sculptures, fences, cars etc.

via Agata Olek

One of the yarn bombing artists who caught my attention is a girl that goes by the name Olek. She knits a very specific kind of pattern and does it outdoors as well as in galleries. Agata Olek knits over anything she gets her hand on. One of her well known guerrilla acts was when she covered the famous sculpture Charging Bull near the Wall Street in crochet.

via Agata Olek

There's also a movement of yarn bombing evolving mostly among European artists which I especially like and it includes yarn, nails, geometry, abstraction and street.

2D version of this is done by a Spanish artist Spidertag.

via Spidertag

via Spidertag

And Teo Pirisi aka Moneyless does something similar but more 3D or lets say floating.

via Moneyless

via Moneyless

Now I dare you to say knitting is for grannies !

In the mood for knitwear

How do you feel about knitwear? And Kama Sutra?

This is "Lana Sutra" ( 'Lana' stands for wool and 'Sutra' for a thread which holds things together ), a project created by Cuban artist Eric Ravelo for Benetton. "Lana Sutra" consists of 15 installations and the idea behind the project is universal love which cancels all diversities among people and connects people no matter what race, color or religion they are.

all images by Erik Ravelo, image courtesy of United Colors of Benetton

Eric Ravelo's sculptures are provocative, yet somehow poetic as the wool gives them warmth and softness.
I must admit I admire the photographs the most. They have the perfect lighting which creates the perfect mood. For more info about the project and interesting "making of" video, go here.