Author Archives: megan

Be it destiny or serendipity or simple coincidence, wonderful things can happen when strangers collide.

Are you familiar with Brandon Stanton, a photographer who walks the streets of New York with his camera in hand, asking complete strangers if he can take their pictures? Stanton posts the photos on his blog, Humans of New York, often with an accompanying story or quote from his subjects. He began what he refers to as his “photo census” back in 2010 as a way to capture and chronicle the neighborhoods of the city through the faces of the people who live there.

Along Brandon’s journey, he met Vidal Chastanet, an eighth-grade student at Mott Bridges Middle School in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville, whose image and accompanying story recently went viral on Stanton’s blog. The day they met, Brandon asked Vidal to share a story of a person who had influenced his life. He chose the principal of his middle school, Ms. Lopez, because of the great lengths she goes to ensure each child knows how much they matter.

Although Stanton usually tries to avoid becoming involved in the lives of his subjects, the response to the blog post was so great, he felt compelled to meet Ms. Lopez. And it just so happens that when he met her, Ms. Lopez was in the middle of a fundraising effort to send her sixth grade students to a summer program at Harvard. Because Brownsville has the highest crime rate in the city, and because the limited horizons of disadvantaged youth are always on her mind, Ms. Lopez chose Harvard to show her students (she refers to them as scholars) what it feels like to stand on the campus of one of the world’s greatest schools and know that they belong there. Brandon was so inspired by Ms. Lopez and her passionate ideas that he personally joined in the effort and launched a fundraiser on Indiegogo.

What transpired next is beyond inspiring!! People started sending in little bits of money. Lots of people. $1 million dollars was raised in five days, ensuring that for the next 25 years, Ms. Lopez’ sixth grade scholars will travel to Harvard.

All because two strangers happened to strike up a conversation on the street.

Who doesn’t love a tulip in bloom this time of year? And a pink one at that?!

Right by the front door at my local Walgreens, I spied these pink beauties in the beginning stages of their spring sprout, so I brought two of them home for $7.99 each. All you do to continue forcing their bloom is to add a titch of water to the bottom compartment of their oh-so-clever glass vase that has a plastic screen just beneath the bulbs.

The roots seek the water, the tulips start to grow, and then, voilà … tulips! What I like about this idea is the fact that I also purchased a container for forcing blooms again this time next year and five pink tulips bulbs that I’ll plant in my garden (x2). The company that thought up this brilliant idea is Bloomaker.com.

Have you been introduced to the colorful, textural, sticky goodness known as washi tape?

It’s taking the craft world by storm and I love to use it to decorate boxes and envelopes, but what do I really know about it? Turns out the word “washi” comes from wa for “Japanese” and shi for “paper,” and it’s used to describe paper made by hand in the traditional Japanese manner. Although the tape isn’t always made outright from washi, the washi-like patterns and texture are where it gets its name.

Washi tape is typically made from natural fibers, such as bamboo or hemp, but most commonly from the bark of trees that are native to Japan—the mulberry, the mitsumata shrub, or the gampi tree. The beauty of the pulp from these sources is that it has no grain, making the tape easy to manipulate and tear. The whole washi tape phenomenon started in 2006 when a group of artists approached a Japanese masking tape manufacturer and presented them with a book of art they had created using the company’s industrial masking tapes. The artists requested that the company manufacture colorful masking tapes for artists, and washi tape was born.

In addition to being used as an art supply for things like business cards, serving trays, lampshades, nail art, and gift wrap, some artists, like Nasa Funahara, are taking it a step further by using washi tape as paint to recreate masterpieces by famous artists like Van Gogh and Verneer.

Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer created with masking tape, photo spoon-tamago.com

An art student at Musashino Art University in Japan, Nasa takes about a week to build her paintings by layering different washi tapes together. Her pieces mimic the original in basic composition, but the real magic lies in looking at them up close, where the vast array of color and texture are revealed. And in Sacramento, California, there’s an art collaborative that creates large-scale interactive art installations out of washi tape, a whole “washi” movement known as Tapigami.

photo, tapigami.com

So next time you see a coordinated pack of washi tape in the checkout line in colors and textures that make you giddy, go ahead and grab it. Its versatility is literally endless.