Natural Fashion: The Omo People

On October 31, we will dress our kids up in Super Hero and princess costumes, paint their faces, and head out on a trek around the neighborhood to present our creativity to the neighbors.  The Surma and Mursi tribes of the Omo valley on the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan don't have the luxury of a nearby Target store, nor does the nomadic tribe have architecture or crafts to express their innate creativity.  As we would tie on a scarf or strap on a Batman mask, they use banana leaves, flowers, butterfly wings, feathers, animal horns and body paint from natural vegetation to transform their bodies into inventive and magical pieces of art.

Photographer and lifelong devotee to investigating and capturing intimate and organic phenomena, Hans Silvester, found himself most recently in this valley with the Omo people. The resulting works have made their way into the Marlborough Gallery in New York (2009, 2010), the Marlborough Gallery in Monaco (2009, 2010) and the Polka Galerie in Paris, France (2009).

Books featuring these bodies of work can be found on Amazon.

Post Author: Tamara Wallop
for Globally Gorgeous

No Impact Man- A Documentary About Sustainability

Most of us are aware of the environmental impact based upon our consumption and ways  of life and are at least concious of some little things we can and try to  do to make a difference.  The Beaven family took their actions to the extreme in a humorous and educational documentary that follows them as they abandon their high-consumption Fifth Avenue lifestyle in an attempt to make a no-net environmental impact.

Colin Beavan began this project in research for his next book.  He calls himself "a liberal schlub who got tired of listening to himself complain about the world without ever actually doing anything about it…" Thus, in November, 2006, Beavan launched a year-long project in which he, his wife, his two-year-old daughter and his four-year-old dog went off the grid and attempted to live in the middle of New York City with as little environmental impact as possible. Michelle Beavan, a self-proclaimed shopaholic and Starbucks poster girl, had absolutely no idea what she was getting into when she agreed to do the No Impact Project, You can sign up for a week and follow their step by step guide if you are feeling up to the challenge.

  This documentary, "No Impact Man," is sure to stimulate interesting conversations about lessons learned from the viewing experience. Maybe it will even spark a change that will make a difference.  Maybe you'll remember to bring your water bottle, or your own cup to Starbucks, or your own bags to the grocery store.  Maybe you'll walk to work one day a week..The DVD is available for purchase or on Netflix.
Here are 6 of Colin's Guidelines for a Low Impact Life, ( more on his blog)
 

1.Save the World by improving your diet.

Cutting beef out of your diet will reduce your CO2 emissions by 2,400 pounds annually. Could you commit to a week without beef for a week? a month?  maybe just 3 days a week?

 2. Get your Drinking Water for Free.

Giving up 1 bottle of imported water means using up one less liter of fossil fuel and emitting 1.2 pounds less of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Could you commit to a week without plastic water bottles? A month? A year?

3. Observe and Eco-sabbath-

Don’t buy anything, don't use any machines, don't switch on anything electric, don't cook, don't answer your phone, and, in general, don't use any resources. Do it for a whole day each week to cut your impact by 14.4% a year. Could you commit to one hour a week for a month? A year?

4. Tithe a fixed portion of your Income-

If an average family contributes 1% ($502.33) of their annual income ($50,233) to an environmental non-profit, they could offset 40.7 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Could you commit to tithing .5% of your annual income to an environmental non-profit? 1%? 2%?

5. Get there Under Your Own Steam-

If you can stay off the road and ride your bike or walk just two days a week, you'll reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 1,590 pounds per year and get good, healthy exercise and we'll all breathe fewer fumes. Could you commit to using your own steam for one day a week? Two? Three?

6. Commit to Eco-Service-

Take time off from television watching each week and join with others to improve our planet. Spend three fewer hours each day sitting in front of your plasma television and you will reduce your carbon emissions by 550 pounds each year. Could you commit to 5 hours of eco-service a month? 0? 15?

Post Author Tamara Wallop
for Globally Gorgeous

"A Certain Slant of Light"- Art Exhibit

It is truly wonderful when good friends create something artistically unique that is especially wonderful  when it is a  collaborative  process. Our good friends, Lisa Schulte and Cyndee Howard did just that, right here in Santa Barbara.

Cyndee Howard

light is liquid, life is liquid, 2010
digital photograph printed on aluminum

48" x 32"

A Certain Slant of Light: New Works by Cyndee Howard and Lisa Schulte is a two-person exhibit exploring the notion of light as a formal as well as thematic medium.    The show is curated by Miki Garcia, Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum,  the exhibition features new works in photography by Howard and neon sculpture by Schulte.
The title is borrowed from a poem by Emily Dickinson that reveals an intimate, yet complex investigation into the nature of light as a spiritual, psychological, and physical theme.  Both artists use this theme of light to portray this internal processing of emotions themselves, including angst, love, anger, lust, sweetness and spirituality.  They all have titles like growth..and processing...and i cannot escape which allude to the works as vehicles for self-realization and discovery.  An interesting medium choice for private explorations of self, as neon and light are usually chosen for public attention grabbing spaces. For this exhibition, Howard was inspired by the neon works in Schulte's Los Angeles Studio and thus became the idea for the two-person showing; as stated by Garcia "a demonstration of the collaborative spirit between two artists, working together to find similar expressions using their own media."

Lisa Schulte has worked with neon lights for thirty years as an industrial designer and artist.  She uses neon to as a "way to tell a story, show the shapes and communicate feelings."  The works in this exhibition evolved out of a person struggle to move from a dark period back into the light and to find her voice as an artist.  Beginning with an emotion visualized in the form of light she determines whether it is possible to recreate the vision using the medium of neon: gas, glass, and fluorescent powders.

Lisa Schulte

Processing, 2010

16 straight runs of coated blue neon mounted on white aluminum

40" x 72"

Lisa Schulte

Scan, 2010
green neon on green high gloss metal

39" x 60"

Lisa Schulte

Eyes wide Open, 2010 
orange neon on orange high gloss metal

21" x  24"

Cyndee Howard is an accomplished photographer who uses her camera as a way to articulate her thoughts and desires.  She describes her worldview as two-fold. "the one within, whirling, dashing, jumping from thought to thought or emotion to emotion and then one very still, very quiet and observing everything outside and around me while trying to remain invisible.  One is very logical and mathematical, one very lyrical and mystical.  Sometimes they meet."  She describes the process as an investigation of pushing the limits of shooting light for the sake of light, experimenting with aperture, focal settings, film speeds, camera shake, and other variations.

Cyndee Howard

I see red, 2010

digital photograph printed on aluminum

48" x  32"

Cyndee Howard

growth, 2010

digital photograph printed on aluminum

30" x 30" 

These works are on display July1-August 14 

The Church

125 West Ortega Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

805.966.5225

email: cyndee.howard@gmail.com

A Slant of Light: Catalogue

Caimeiju: "Selecting a Beautiful Residence" an "American Residence"

Closing the Gap for Chinese Interested in American Real Estate ...

Caimeiju is Simplified Chinese for "Selecting a beautiful residence" or "Selecting an American residence". I came across Caimeiju.com recently while in Hong Kong. I was looking through LP Luxury Properties Magazine (Asia's leading luxury property magazine)  to see how  top of the market properties are presented in a glossy format in the extensive luxury market in China.

I came across a brief article about a southern California entrepreneur, Jeff Toth, who launched Caimeiju.com a division of Language Media Agency Inc.,  a global marketing firm. I contacted Jeff  immediately to further understand what the agency was doing to promote California real estate to Chinese investors and how to they were able to overcome the language and cultural barrier. Within 48 hours, Jeff had answered my questions by simple method of example. Caimeiju had taken a 4.2 minute film we recently completed featuring our 1478 East Mountain Drive property in Montecito and had their team of Chinese Social Media Experts upload it to YouKu, the Chinese version of YouTube. Unfortuneately, YouTube and Vimeo are both blocked in China as are most western blog sites. Caimeiju is helping to solve this problem for us. Go Caimeiju go!

   

Above is our short film of the East Mountain Drive Property, posted on You Tube.
Click to compare YouKu to the YouTube video below. Click here 视频.

Realizing that I was referred to him by reading LP Luxury Properties Magazine and also that Gregg and I were in Hong Kong, Jeff recommended to us  that we meet with the advertising and marketing director, Michelle Dagenais at LP Luxury Properties while in Hong Kong. Jeff made the introduction and we met Ms. Dagenais at Cafe Causette at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel conveniently where we were staying The result of that meeting will be an editorial feature on the East Mountain Drive Property in the July issue of LP Luxury Properties Magazine as well as likely advertising commitments from our side. The magazine focuses only on properties that are for sale and only very high end, top of the market luxury properties. This property is listed with Sotheyby's International Realty for $28.5 Million US. SuzannePerkins.com  

Additionally, the Caimeiju Team posted a photo blog about the property on  Caimeiju.com as well as on Sounfun, Sohu.com, Sina mini blog, and Renren. All of these sites are accessible from mainland China and multiplying our exposure. 
http://blog.soufun.com/27088163/9949566/articledetail.htm
http://blog.soufun.com/27088163/9949599/articledetail.htm
Jeff demonstrated to us how the Caimieju team was able to immediately present our marketing collateral (expensive marketing collateral) to a  new market, previously untapped because of the language and cultural barrier. The relevance is simple, the Chinese are buying property in America because it is a great value to them now, however the Chinese investor goes about it differently, shall we say more empirically. Caimeiju.com is a portal to present Californian properties, American properties in a format that is more useful to the Chinese and in their language presented in a more culturally relevant manner.  

CANstruction 2010-Design Build and Feed the Hungry

CANSTRUCTION 2010-4th Annual Chicago Design/ Build Competion

ACANemy Awards Tonight, Thursday May 13 at the Chicago Merchandise Mart 6-8:30

A unique competitive spirit engaging the design/ build community of Architects, Engineers, Contractors and Real Estate Professionals while also feeding the hungry.

Put on by The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago's Food Bank.

Some of last years 3rd Annual Projects..

2010 World Expo Shanghai - Notable Pavilions- Architecture & Design

UK

Heatherwick Studio Architects

The concept is an unwraped package reflective of a visit to a UK public park. Open roof, open space mixed with a series of walkways through a "Green City" and Open City"  London is 40 percent "green", making it the largest green city in the world.  It features an opportunity to invest in nature and save seeds to protect the future.  The Seed Cathedral is formed from 60,000 slender transparent rods, each 7.5 meters long.  They act as fibre optic filaments in the day, drawing light in. Rods are embedded with lights to brovide a glowing light at night.

 

POLAND

WWA Architects

The concept is Human, Creativity and City, featuring giant paper cut-outs of flowery designs to reflect the combination of Polish Architecture of modernity and folk art.

 

DENMARK

Big Architects

The concept takes the best of living on Copenhagen featuring spiral knot tied bicycle friendly infrastructure equip with 1500 eco-friendly two wheelers for vistors to use to explore. At the center, a pool featuring the Little Mermaid, a famous landmark of Denmark.

United Arab Emirates

Foster and Partners Architects

The concept is a sand dune representing the symbolic feature of the desert landscape shared by all seven emirates.  It is one of the largest pavilions at 20 meters in height, enclosing 3000 square meters with a 400 person capacity.  This is a truly recyclable pavilion as it will be dismantled and moved to a permanent location.

BRAZIL

Fernando Brandao Arquiterura e Design Architects

A visual journey of screens display insight into the lifestyles of Brazilians optimism and passion for life.  Visit beaches, the Amazon rain forest, football and do the Samba.  Also features renewable resources as 45 percent of all Brazil's resources come from renewable sources.

ISRAEL

Hiam 2 Dototan Architect

The concept is the "Whispering Garden", which greets visitors as they enter the building.  Trees begin to "whisper" in both English and Chinese when visitors walk close to them.

SPAIN

Barcelonese Studio Architects

Covered in rattan mats, a very modern yet traditional building featuring the running of the bulls, flamenco dancers and football matches. Feel the floor rumble beneath you as a stampede of horses go by while watching flamenco dancers.

"Better City, Better Life" -World Expo 2010- A Sustainable Shanghai

Following John and Gregg as they travel to Shanghai and to the kickoff the the 
World Expo 2010. 

Appropriately, the theme of Expo 2010 is "Better City, Better Life," representing the common wish of the whole humankind for a better living in future urban environments. This theme represents a central concern of the international community for future policy making, urban strategies and sustainable development. In 1800, 2% of the global population lived in cities. In 1950, the figure raised to 29%, in 2000, almost half the world population moved into cities, and by 2010, as estimated by the United Nations, the urban population will account for 55% of the total human population.
The quest for a better life has run through the urban history of mankind. Through different sub-themes, Expo 2010 will create blueprints for future cities and harmonious urban life styles, providing an extraordinary educational and entertaining platform for visitors of all nations:

*Blending of diverse cultures in the city

*Economic prosperity in the city

*Innovations of science and technology in the city

*Remodelling of communities in the city

*Interactions between urban and rural areas

Opening week staged a series of cultural events including a performance parade and displays of intangible heritage including fireworks displays, Tea Culture Show, Acrobatic Show and a Brand New Show.

The emblem, depicting the image of three people-you, me, him/her holding hands together, symbolizes the big family of mankind. Inspired by the shape of the Chinese character"世"(meaning the world), the design conveys the organizers' wish to host an Expo which is of global scale and which showcases the diversified urban cultures of the world.

The Mascot "Haibao" is created from the Chinese character " 人," which means people, the mascot embodies the character of Chinese culture and echoes with the designing concept of the emblem of World Expo Shanghai. Using the Chinese character as the mascot of an international event is an innovation.

Stay tuned for future post on the incredible architecture of the Pavilions.

Our New Video "Modernism & Glamour - Filmed in Montecito, California"

Please Start the Video Let it play for 10 seconds then start over, it will stream much smoother.

Modernism & Glamour from John Maienza & Gregg Wilson on Vimeo.
This is our new Video "Modernism & Glamour" This video shows the result of our extensive rebuild / renovation of  a mid century, Hollywood Regency Style Estate, originally designed by the famed designer John Elgin Woof who's  career spanned five decades from the  1930's -1970's. Woolf's client list was a virtual who's who of Hollywood. Here's a great link to an interesting article written by Vanity Fair editor at large Matt Tyrnauer "Glamour Begins at Home" written about Woolf, his work and his unique legacy.

See also:
Previous Post : Fashion and Glamour, "Valentino the Last Emperor"

Video Music:
Zero 7 - Song: Polaris
From the Album "Simple Things" released June 12, 2001
No copyright infringement is intended and Music can be purchased here on iTunes.

Volcano Lightning Video: Hawaii Video and Photos from Iceland

Photograph by Marco Fulle, Barcroft/Fame Pictures  - Volcano Lightning in Iceland

Photograph by Marco Fulle, Barcroft/Fame Pictures - Volcano Lightning in Iceland


Check Out National Geographic Daily News for amazing photos of Volcano Lighting in Iceland. 

iPad & Cat.. If you're a Cat Lover You will love the Cat and iPad

Mao Mao

When I get my new iPad 3G 64g that I got for my birthday (thank you Gregg) Mao Mao our Abyssinian cat who is smart and active may have to get her own Apple toy! Here she is playing with a toy chimp given to her by Jane Goodall when she came to a benefit dinner at our home for the Jane Goodall Institute!

Is Your Hand Lotion is Harming our Ocean? Think about whats it's doing to your body...

I don't know about you, but I prefer my ocean to look like this ...

rather than this...

"The Solution to Pollution is no longer Dilution"

According to the latest findings by Heal the Ocean in Santa Barbara, not only are our oceans in danger but so is our freshwater supply.  Their goal is to move toward reclaimed wastewater by adapting treatment plants to focus on reclaiming this water rather than dumping untreated chemical contaminants it into our oceans.  By doing so we could solve two problems:  stop widespread pollution of the ocean and address the lack of potable water needed to sustain the states future.

How can you help?

Take a look at what ingredients are in your everyday household goods.  If you can't pronounce it, you should not be putting it down the drain- OR on your body OR on your dishes, counter tops and floors-where your kids and pets spend most of their day.  

Before waste water treatment facilities will be able to start reclaiming water they will need to tackle one major issue: Chemical Pollution

Are You Aware?  Can you pass it along?

Antibacterial soaps, shampoos, pharmaceuticals and pesticides are found in our everyday products and are not only harming our oceans, but harming us as well!  Most of us are still unaware of the chemicals we are brushing our teeth with, rubbing into our scalp and onto our skin. Skin is the largest organ in our body, and if not for the ocean, do it for yourself and your family. Switching household products to Mrs. Meyers or Method is a great start.  They smell better anyway and actually make cleaning pleasant, I find the Basil or Geranium scented Meyer's counter top spray and dish washing soap to feel like aromaTHERAPY while I do my everyday chores. Filling the house with a pleasing scent opposed to the pine sol and bleach stench I grew up with is reason enough to switch. These products have recently made their way to major supermarket shelves and are therefore more accessible.

Try Tom's of Maine toothpaste and deodorants that are free of mercury and formaldehyde among other scary things.  Trader Joe's also has a great tasting non-toxic toothpaste.

Parabens and other toxic chemicals are found in most facial products, a great alternative to those is Apriori as previously discussed here.

We need to focus on the little steps we can do to reduce our carbon footprint and 

Heal the Ocean.

"Ocean Waste water discharge has become even more questionable as waste water contains a growing number of contaminants of emerging concern, and freshwater becomes more scarce."

Coastal communities flush away more than 1 billion gallons of fresh water everyday by discharging waste water into the Pacific Ocean. California Ocean waste water Discharge Report and Inventory examined the states 43 waste water treatment facilities and determined that only 312 million gallons are reclaimed daily for beneficial use.  

Hillary Hauser, executive director for Heal the Ocean says a major campaign is needed to raise awareness about the benefits of high-quality recycled water and its potential to be cleaner than many drinking water supplies.  Heal the Ocean officials are distributing the report to water agencies and state officials and feel the next step is to put together a campaign to find funding for treatment upgrades and a shift toward reclaimed water.  The report took half a decade to complete and can be viewed at Heal the Ocean's site.

While they tackle the larger campaign to find funding for treatment upgrades, we can all campaign to make smaller changes in what we are putting down our drain and on our bodies.  Please pass this on!  Help others Heal themselves and the Ocean!

Post Author for GloballyGorgeous

Tamara Wallop