Skippin’ Town to the North Carolina Museum of Art

So yesterday I went to Raleigh to visit the North Carolina Museum of Art and it. was. great.  The museum is free, and sketching and photography are permitted (crazy, right??).  (Unfortunately, my camera battery died about six minutes after I got there, so I missed getting a photo of my favorite work in the museum, shown here as it’s exhibited in Chicago.)  What’s also pretty cool about the museum is that people really take advantage of it; there were business meetings happening in the cafe, parents hanging out with their kids, couples meandering through the galleries,… I loved that the museum (which has a pretty great collection) intentionally makes itself so accessible to so many people.  Oh, and also the museum itself is pretty beautiful.

Here are some pictures (from, of course, the first six minutes of my visit) to entice you to check it out!

My friend Tony trying to figure out the facade assembly…because that is what we do :)

This little girl was KILLING me.

If you’re ever in Raleigh, it’s worth stopping by.  Let me know if you go!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish,…MINE.

I am pretty sure The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened To Me (in a long time, anyway) just happened to me.

I went down to the vending machine to make my daily peanut butter cracker purchase.  A pack of peanut butter crackers is the cheapest and most tasteless snack in the entire machine, and yet I buy them every. single. day.  The great thing about this particular vending machine is that sometimes it gives you TWO of what you pay for.  The terrible thing about this particular vending machine is that sometimes it gives you NONE of what you pay for.

Considering how awful the crackers are, however, this isn’t always the worst thing.

But today a wonderful thing happened!  I clinked my sixty cents into the coin slot, punched in “56″ to indicate my pb cracker request, and out came

There is an unwritten rule in our studio that any food attained fo’ free must be shared with the group.  We are all always hungry, and we are all always poor, so we have a silent agreement that our odd Cratchit Family propensities should be dulled by the salve of free food.

But did I mention Swedish Fish are my favorite candy?  Did I?  And that there were probably only enough of the little guys to give one tiny fish to each of my classmates?  And that eating one–and only one–Swedish Fish probably requires more effort than benching, I dunno, a camel?  No, no I did not mention these things, but I am now.

Which is why I hid my vending machine prize.

In my mouth.

25 Unheard Expressions of Gratitude

The worst thing about getting a gift when you’re a kid is that your mom inevitably makes you write a thank-you note to the person who provided the wrapped box of obligation.  I always hated this exercise because I never knew what to say.

And I always wrote REALLY BIG so I didn’t have to say as much to fill up the card.  Because (obviously) my level of gratitude was proportional to the amount of real estate I’d managed to cover with my words.

I’m feeling a different kind of gratitude today, however.  The gifts I’ve got to be thankful for the most may not have shown up bedecked in ribbons and glitter, but that doesn’t mean some words of thanks aren’t warranted.  Maybe it’s just the springtime weather that’s got me overflowing with feelgoods, but whether the weather is cold or hot, unappreciative and apathetic are two things I’m not.

The point of writing a thank-you note is usually to gratify the gift-giver.  But what if you’re somehow not in contact with that person?  What then?  A number of the wonderful things in my life can be attributed to people who will never hear how much I’ve appreciated what they’ve done.  Still, following the age-old instruction to “count my blessings,” I’m listing 25 expressions of gratitude–some silly, some serious, all true–that remind me of the goodness in my life that is no product of my own doing.

Have you ever made a list like this one?  If you haven’t, you should give it a try (and let me know what you end up writing down!).  Gratitude’s a pretty powerful and humbling thing.  We should try it more often.

Kate Does Cassandre Does Architecture: An Exhibit

So this semester got off to an uncharacteristically slow start.  As in, we didn’t actually have a project to work on for the first few weeks.  Crazy, right?  I’m not very good at sitting still, so I started working on a set of posters (ripping off this guy) because the combination of boredom and general frustration with too many architects taking themselves too seriously was starting to work its way through my happy caffeine cloud.

As I was finishing the posters, I thought it would be a great idea to make an exhibit out of them, so these photos are of my school’s lobby/exhibit space right after I put everything up last night.

Thanks for browsing!

(bonus points if you got this one ^)

Architects Have Feelings, Too.

And here’s proof!

Valentine’s Day is coming up.  Are you ready for it?  I love Valentine’s Day.  And I love this list architect Eero Saarinen (he did the St. Louis arch and the Kennedy Airport TWA terminal…kind of a big deal) made for his wife Aline Bernstein in the 1950s.

I mean, come on.  Who doesn’t want to have a list of their good qualities written up and preserved for all time?  I’m sure Aline isn’t the only person who’d melt over such a sweet gesture…

(Found here)