On April 14th at 6 PM I'll be presenting a talk at Fort Lauderdale's FATVillage Projects (in the Flagler Arts and Technology district near downtown) as part of their Art+Tech Incubator Lecture and Workshop Series. My topic will be the musical swings project I helped with last year and about using electronics in interactive art installations. Hope to see you there!

In recent months I've been edging closer and closer to taking my love of architecture a little more seriously. What with October's trip to Dubai and consequent gawking at some absurdly fanciful (and yet actually realized!) designs for towers, a few mildly architectural home projects I'm working on, and my fascination with Netflix's new show The World's Most Extraordinary Homes, it's time to indulge in publishing some old architectural fantasies of mine. Here's a page of doodles from last January, mostly playing with the terraced idea that's been so important a part of skyscraper design since the beginning:

As part of a personal goal to organize my work supplies a bit better, I created a sort of visual checklist of the things I carry, or would like to make sure I carry, in my everyday backpack. To organize the list according to what things go in what pockets (and to get some drawing practice), I made a sketch of my pack (EM brand, naturally) so that I could call out each compartment specifically. Click on the image to download a PDF.

If you carry a lot of stuff in a backpack, briefcase, toolbox, or whatever, try it yourself! Don't worry about your drawing skills—a more schematic or cartoon-like sketch would work just as well. Or take a photo and use that. Be sure to share your results!

Here's some old sketches of West Palm Beach, Florida, from 2015, that I never got around to uploading until now.

Those that follow the activities of the North American branch of the Martinson family will have heard of an eccentric holiday tradition: the naming, one year in advance, of a color scheme to be adhered to rigorously in everything to do with the next celebration of Christmas. Gift-wrapping paper, decorations, outfits, seasonal cocktails, and even some of the foods are chosen to comply with the stated theme, selected by a sort of democratic process. Although it is more customary to explicitly name two (hopefully harmonious) colors, this last Christmas was adorned by colors described only with “Peacock”, i.e. any colors to be found in the feathers of the bird.

Needing name tags for the gifts I was giving, I designed a sort of snowflake graphic composed of peacock feathers and laser-engraved it onto acrylic. I'm not the only one to have thought of this as a google image search will reveal, but I did draw the feathers myself in Adobe Illustrator using a tool I'm pretty clumsy with but would really like to master in the new year: a Wacom Intuos tablet. I made about a dozen of these for my family and friends, each with a name on it, raster-engraved on to and vector-cut out of 1/16 inch cast acrylic sheet. They can be used as decorations for the tree also.

Here's an Illustrator file if anyone would like to adapt the design for their own purposes:

• Peacock Feather Snowflake, PDF

If I had made a list of unlikely post titles when I first started this blog (or even only a year ago), “Peacock Feather Snowflakes” would surely have ranked high.