Your Daily Insight as told by Maya Angelou

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

Kickstarter Pick: 3rd Ward's Michael Zick Doherty Takes "Green Thumb" To The Next Level With Bitponics

As we've mentioned before, 3rd Ward's Michael Zick Doherty always seems to be working on innovative and inspiring projects. And today is no different. Teaming up with software engineer Amit Kumar, Doherty is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to support Bitponics, which they describe as "Your Personal Gardening Assistant." With just over a week left to go, they're raised over half of their $20,000 goal. Help them get there and you can score everything from a shout-out on the Bitponics website and a laser-etched Bitponics clay pot to a hydroponics workshop and your own Bitponics device.

We first caught wind of Bitponics when it won an Open Scholarship Scholarship last fall at the Open Hardware Summit, and that winning 26-second YouTube pitch has blossomed into an even more exciting and amazing project. In addition to automating and tracking any hydroponics system, Bitponics can help you cultivate anything that you'd like to see sprouting in your urban garden. "Once you tell it what you're trying to grow, it will use a database of knowledge built up by the community to create a 'growing plan' for you," the Bitponic Kickstarter page explains. "Bitponics will automate anything that can be controlled by a power outlet, like water pumps and lights." And for tasks that can't be automated? "We'll remind you by whatever means you choose: email, text, or in-app notifications."

The full Bitponics setup includes the sensor device, which collects readings like temperature, brightness and pH and lets you set up timers for lights and pumps, and an account on the Bitponics website, which helps you generate a growing plan, gives you recommendations if something in your system has gone awry, and lets you track all of your data and upload photos of your garden as it grows. The device will retail for $395, but you can get it for just a $250 Kickstarter pledge. You'll be able to store a year of growing data—or an unlimited amount for a higher-tiered membership. Anyone who just wants to give the website a whirl can store six months of growing data for free, and both the device and its Arduino-based firmware will be open source, making the possibilities endless.

Check out the Bitponics Kickstarter video and some photos below, then head to Kickstarter to learn more and pledge your support.

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Russell Simmons

I've been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and they help me to execute the vision I have.

Our Top 10: The Stops To Make During This Weekend’s Bushwick Open Studios

The sixth annual Bushwick Open Studios officially takes over the lofts, studios, streets of Bushwick this weekend. With a whopping 500+ events happening today through Sunday, you won't be able to venture far in the neighborhood without stumbling upon some enticing visual art. 

As it'll be equally hard to decide which of those events you want to check out, we've compiled 10 we feel you shouldn't miss. (There are certainly plenty more worth your time, but look at this as a start.) For further guidance, we recommend Hyperallergic's overview, Art Fag City's Recommended BOS profiles, Benjamin Sutton's top 20 on Artinfo.com and some insider tips from L Magazine. For the whole shebang (and a crucial Google map), hit up the official BOS directory. And when you're in the midst of the action, keep your bearings with the BOS iPhone app.

So now for our picks. Godspeed, art seekers!

Defying Devastation: Bushwick in the 80s at The Living Gallery:

Bringing together the photography of Meryl Meisler, who snapped shots as a Bushwick art teacher in the 1980s, the words of Vanessa Mártir, a writer who recognized her own seven-year-old self in one of Meisler's photographs, and the design of Patricia J. O'Brien, who also taught art in Bushwick in the 80s--Defying Devastation offers an extraordinary account the neighborhood's difficult past. All weekend.

Moustache Man.Street Art Pop-Up Store at 174 Bogart:

Writer, curator and 3rd Ward teacher Robin Grearson's latest project is "a curated collection of super-affordable artwork and artist-designed merchandise by well-established and emerging Brooklyn artists." It will be the first chance to snatch up "(legal) work" by the infamous Moustache Man and prints by Enzo & Nio, as well as new work by Quel Beast and the last pieces of the deconstructed QRST/Criminy Johnson mural from Dreaming Without Sleeping. All weekend. 

Holy BOS! at Bobby Redd Project Space:

Taking place in and around a beautiful church, Holy BOS! will present a weekend full of live music, film, art performances, yoga, food and more. All weekend.

Bushwick Open Studios T-Shirt Project at Brooklyn Fire Proof Cafe:

BOS and local studio BKtees offer up live t-shirt printing of works by select BOS artists. Friday June 1st, 2012, 6pm-10pm.

Feather Weight at Studio 307:

3rd Ward's own Allison Wall will join seven other artists for a studio visit turned group exhibition featuring sculpture, painting, photography and video. Saturday and Sunday.

Daniel Bejar, Stretchin a Dollar, 2008. One hundred U.S. cents flattened by freight trains 1" x 14.4'. NURTUREart presents new works by Bejar at Bushwick Basel.

Bushwick Basel at Starr Space:

Taking its name the influential international contemporary art showcase Art Basel, this is an "art fair" organized by renowned French artist Jules de Balincourt, who recently told Gallerist "I hate art fairs." Obviously this isn't your typical art world shindig. Rather than lining the wallets of the Gagosians and Saatchis of the world, Bushwick Basel showcases homegrown galleries like Norte Maar, English Kills and Storefront Bushwick. Saturday and Sunday.

Rafael Fuchs at 49 Bogart:

The accomplished photographer and well-known man-about-Bushwick, whose work we featured back in September, presents work "exploring the border between what is 'proper' to photograph, what is 'proper' to show, and what is a 'proper' way of showing." All weekend.

Rafael Fuchs

24 Hour Dialogue on Art and Life with Bushwick at Thames and Varick:

Like to talk? Stop by the traffic island at Thames Street and Varick Avenue between sunset on Saturday and sunset on Sunday. "Peter Boswijck of HEAVY WOODS" will serve as moderator for quite a lengthy discussion. Saturday and Sunday.

3D Buildings Bushwick at 538 Johnson Ave. #401:

Self-proclaimed as "a project of outrageous scope and pointlessness," 3D Buildings Bushwick is an ambitious and fascinating attempt to create and upload accurate virtual models of the neighborhood's landmarks to Google Earth. Saturday and Sunday.

Sculpture Garden at The Onderdonk House.

Sculpture Garden at The Onderdonk House:

A collaboration between Bushwick artist and gallerist Deborah Brown and Lower East Side gallerist Lesley Heller, this project has populated the grounds of the historic Dutch farmhouse with lots of locally-made sculpture. All weekend.

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Coco Chanel

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. 

Good Cause: Donate To Streetsblog This Week For A Chance To Win A Shiny New Schwinn

 

Bike Month is winding down, so hopefully you hit up some of the awesome events listed on BikeNYC.org and witnessed a few wild rides at the City Reliquary's Bike Fetish Day (check out these great photos). To wrap things up, we'll leave you with one more way to participate without even stepping away from your screen.

All month long nonprofit cycling and sustainable transportation website Streetsblog has been raising money to support the invaluable daily content that they've been delivering since 2006. In addition to a steady stream of news and information on their NYC, LA, SF, DC and national blogs, Streetsblog also runs Streetfilms, a site "dedicated to documenting livable streets worldwide." As of Wednesday they were just $3,500 shy of their $30,000 goal, and you have until Friday at midnight to help bridge the gap. 

In addition to supporting a great cause, your donation will get you a chance to win a set of Yehuda Moon comics, and if you chip in $50 or more to Streetsblog NYC or Streetfilms, you'll be entered to win a Schwinn city bike from Ride Brooklyn.

While you're preparing to pledge your support, check out one of Streetfilms' many biketastic videos:

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Beatrice Wood

Very few people know how to work. Inspiration, everybody has inspiration, that's just hot air.

Casual Transcendence: Takeshi Suga's "Sakuramadelica"

Under normal circumstances, a photographer documenting trees wouldn't exactly quicken our pulse. Though we feel we're achieving some form of weightlessness just gazing at Takeshi Suga's latest work, Sakuramadelica 2012. 

In an age of over-Instagramming, Suga's images of Sakura (or, cherry blossoms) teeter dangerously close to the iPhone aesthetic. It's the perspective--almost as if the camera was affixed to a hummingbird--that helps the work reach its otherworldliness.

Below are some of our favorite Sakuramadelica selects. And for those inspired by Suga's simple (though nonetheless beautiful) technique, hone your own in one or two of our photo classes this summer.

Here you are:

All Images © Takeshi Suga

Your Daily Insight as told by William S. Burroughs

Artists, to my mind, are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

The Absurd Food Photography of Brittney Meyer

You may remember our recent profile with food photographer Max Kelly.  Kelly's work is what you might refer to as "higher brow."

Today, we bring you something decidedly, how do we say this, "less higher brow": As in, the absurdist food photography of Brittney Meyer. Some images can be a bit stomach-churning (molding cheese and decomposing pasta) but most are synonymous with a night at the disco, assuming shiny dance floors, colorful strobe lights and deliberately bad backdrops are your thing.

No, Meyers' isn't the most mindblowingly moving work we've ever seen, but it's not supposed to be. There's no denying that choco-pops soaring through the universe bring a warm feeling of ease to our bodies, that maybe all could be right in the world.  

Besides, we never tire of people lampooning  the equally (though unintentionally) terrible food commercials that feature flying shredded cheese, tomatoes being diced midair under a waterfall and char-broiled burgers that seemingly flip themselves. And Meyers' work seems to poke an underhanded jab at that kind of ridiculousness.

Most of Meyer's images--like her tacos surfing the ocean or her cubes of ground meat enjoying a pink Hawaiian sunset--are begging to be used as backgrounds for your summer party invitation.  And we don't see anything wrong with that.

Head on over to Meyer's site to view more, but first, a few of our faves: