Mother Love Is A Force Of Nature

We launched! It's been a busy time for the folks at Moms Clean Air Force. We've been writing, designing, developing, and finally launching a shiny new website!

While I've been holed up with my computer for hours on end, the collaborative effort has been incredibly inspiring. Working with a team is something I've missed being a freelance writer/editor/blogger these past four years.

Once I corral the talented team of writers, and teach them how to use all the nifty new tools, I will have time to write again. Yay!

In the meantime, do you want to learn more about MCAF? Of course you do!

Below is the MCAF welcome note from founder, Dominique Browning. After you check out the website (just beautiful, huh?), please come back and tell me what your thoughts are about the site and our mission to clean up the air. Thank you!

Mother Love Is A Force of Nature

Moms Clean Air Force has a newly designed website, and I’m delighted to welcome you to our community. We’re creating a movement for people who see air pollution as a straightforward, urgently important health issue.

Our goals are simple: educate people about why air pollution is still a big problem; raise awareness about what’s at stake politically; inspire people to take simple, fast action to send Washington a message.

We know moms are busy. But moms are also extraordinarily protective of their children’s health. We specialize in Naptime Activism.

Our bloggers take our message into their communities, reaching millions of readers. We network on Facebook and Twitter. Our growing community includes nurses, doctors, scientists, politicians, novelists, journalists, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, knitters and bakers–concerned moms, dads, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. Air pollution is harmful to everyone with a beating heart.

Air pollution contains toxins that harm people’s brains, lungs, and hearts. It is affecting our food and water. Children are especially vulnerable to toxic pollutants; Latino and African American babies suffer disproportionately from poisoned air. While there are lots of things we can do, as individuals, to keep our children safe at home, no one can control the air they breathe. We need regulations for that.

We’re all for respecting reasonable, efficient government budgets. But we don’t want our babies thrown out with the bathwater.

President Nixon’s Clean Air Act of 1970, and the agency he founded, the Environmental Protection Agency, have accomplished a great deal in cleaning American air and water. But the work isn’t done. The sky might be blue, but that doesn’t mean it is clean. In forty years, we’ve learned much more about invisible pollutants that wreak havoc on our health, causing neurological and developmental problems. Asthma rates among children are skyrocketing.

Air pollution isn’t just dirty. It is poisonous. Polluters are fighting for the right to pollute!

The Clean Air Act and the EPA are facing an unprecedented attack by some politicians and coal and oil industry lobbyists. That’s because emissions from coal-fired power plants are the single largest contributor to mercury toxins in our air.

Many responsible coal plant owners have done the right thing and cleaned up their toxic air emissions. It hasn’t hurt their bottom lines at all–they’re making record profits. The EPA has created thousands of jobs for Americans in the last forty years–in sectors from research to enforcement to engineering to new technology development.

Air pollution can be cleaned up. Please join Moms Clean Air Force to make our voices loud and clear. Send politicians a forceful message: Strengthen and enforce pollution regulations!

Polluters have power, money and political influence. But moms have love. And that’s the strongest force of all. Now we have to use it.

PLEASE JOIN MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE

Sawkille Co.

"That is best which works best…Beauty rests on utility…Simplicity is the embodiment of purity and unity" ~ Shaker Designers

I recently visited the Sawkille Co. showroom for Chronogram magazine and was dazzled by the simplicity of the designs…

Well-crafted objects enhance the experience of creating a home. The furniture and home décor items of Sawkille Co. are simplistically refined in their celebration of Hudson Valley artisan crafts. The Sawkille showroom in Rhinebeck, purchase NY draws visitors into a comfort zone that comes from an uncluttered space. The warmth of the handmade solid wood furnishings, with their down-to-earth style, conveys an airy and primitive aesthetic. The modern rusticity of the Sawkille’s handcrafted conceptual pieces are beautifully functional, and honestly durable. Large handcrafted wood dining tables created by co-owner Jonah Meyer mingle with hand-forged wall hooks crafted by Tivoli artist John Corcoran. Inspired wall art complements the showroom’s casual and curated displays, giving each piece the breathing space and consideration it deserves.

“We design and build work that will improve with time and use. We hope to add something lovely to an environment that you cultivate, to inspire and nurture yourself or someone you know,” says Jonah Meyer.

Meyer implements traditional wood joinery and finishing techniques with his adept handwork that seamlessly blends the mixed local woods with finely detailed industrial metalwork. His time-honored woodworking skills combine classically formed furniture, creating heirloom quality pieces with an understated elegance. Each table, chair, and storage unit is a functional work of art. Meyer calls this style “Farmhouse Modern.” He explains, “I’m attracted to old, finely crafted American furniture, and I like supermodern. I steal from both disciplines.”

As a RISD-schooled multidimensional artist, Meyer moved to the Catskills where he continued to create art - pottery and sculpture. Along with his wife and business partner, Tara Delisio, Meyer first opened a showroom outside of Woodstock that displayed small-production designs. Delisio, who grew up in Woodstock, runs the website and a delightful accompanying blog that provides a peek into the lifestyle of Sawkille’s inner world.

Some might consider Sawkille Co. a showroom, and others may approach the space as a gallery. But Meyer says, “I’m not in the business of selling art, and this is not a gallery.” While Meyer’s furnishings command center stage at Sawkille, there’s a collaborative artistry at work as well. The careful curation of handmade objects from other fine Hudson Valley artisans blends well with Meyer’s larger hardwood pieces create a cohesive shopping experience.

Drawing from the rich heritage of the Hudson Valley, Sawkille embodies many of the touchstones of sustainable living. All of the wood is local and the furnishings are finished and hand rubbed using beeswax or Danish oil. Low-impact elements give Sawkille a green edge. A local potter is provided sawdust to fuel his firings, and leftover stumps of waste trees are upcycled into gorgeous seats or tables. These zero-waste essentials are the types of monuments to eco-friendly living that make a simple home simply delightful.

Credits: Sawkille Co.

Sliding Commute

I’ve mentioned before my husband Ted is a planner. Urban planners are constantly searching for ways to improve transportation in and out of cities. Ted emailed me this video (yes, cure we work in the same house and still email each other) of a slide installed next to a stairway at a railway station in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The slide is called a “transfer accelerator”. It offers commuters in a hurry an expedited trip to the tracks.

I love how designers and planners created such a playful idea to lighten up the drudgery of commuting by train.

Check out the slide in action:

Source: Planetizne

Mondrian Surprise

mondrian house Does this house fit into its beach bluff surroundings?

Every time I catch a glimpse of this Mondrian-inspired beach house, I ask myself that question. Actually, this small house changed the way I look at beach houses. I held a long-standing notion that a beach house should fold softly into the landscape. A naturally occurring palette of sandy sun-bleached shells and neutral earthy tones would seem to make a beach home recede rather than stand out in its environment. Yet, I am strongly attracted to the symmetry of this colorful beach home, and to the element of surprise.

When I left teaching a few years ago and started on this “reinvention” journey, I thought I would throw myself into design. After enrolling in a Parsons class, my passion was sparked by sustainable design. Living spaces that were environmentally ethical made the most sense to me. This started a creative conversation at Econesting that has hopefully touched a few souls.

I discovered art and design co-mingle in unexpected ways. A small group of architects, designers and artists after the turn of the 20th century established an avant-garde art journal called, De Stijl. The group believed the beauty in painting, sculpture and architecture should create a whole new concept of order. They felt a universal style would symbolize and precipitate collective harmony. The group also believed the search for honesty and beauty would ultimately bring enlightenment to all of humanity. Not sure that happened quite as planned, but I'm all for lofty dreaming.

This group included designer, Piet Mondrian. He created his designs following three basic principles: 1. straight lines intersect at right angles 2. use primary colors: red, yellow, blue, or black 3. composition is an asymmetric balance

You can see these principles applied to the Mondrian beach house above, and the obvious inspiration that influenced Yves St. Laurent's 1965 Vogue cover dress.

So, I’ll ask you…Does this house fit into a beach environment? Want to take a gander at where the Mondrian house is?

Main Credit: Ben Scott