It’s the work of Sonja Vordermaier and it’s called Streetlampforest. It’s a collection of street lights from different times & places around Europe. (You can read more on My Modern Met.) She needs to come to New York and make an American version.

Greetings from Project Neon headquarters. What you see above is my nifty new neon sign, which is going to hang in the window of the Project Neon show at the City Reliquary. If you are in New York, you should come:

Project Neon
Opening Friday September 23rd
7p – 10p
The City Reliquary
370 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY  11211

Also at that show we’ll be celebrating the launch of the free Project Neon iPhone app. In order for that to happen, we need to submit it to Apple in the next couple of days, so I’ve got quite a bit of work to get done (not to mention getting ready for the show). On account of that there will probably be radio silence around here for the next couple of weeks, but I look forward to catching up with everything after that, and I hope to see you at the opening!

He’s having a show opening this Wednesday May 18th at 7pm. It’s at 119 Ludlow Street in the lower level, and while I don’t know that I can make the opening, I’m definitely going to check it out. You should, too!

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In Project Neon news:

• Don’t forget to visit the Project Neon Kickstarter page!  Time is ticking away, and if the goal isn’t met by May 30th, I don’t get any money, the iPhone app doesn’t happen, and I don’t get to mail out the cool rewards. So please give what you can, whether that’s $10 or $100 and help spread the word by emailing it to a couple of friends who might be interested or posting it to a blog or two. Thanks! And a big double plus thank you to all the fantastic backers who have already pledged.
• In case you’ve missed it, there’s a new post weekly over at the Project Neon blog. A new one just went up last night.
• On Saturday May 21st I’ll be presenting Project Neon at the Kick It! Half-Day Mini Conference of Ideas in Action in Bed-Stuy. I’ll be bringing a New York neon game with prizes and the audience gets to vote on their favorite project, which will be awarded a cash prize from part of the ticket proceeds. Get your tickets here.
• Project Neon now has a Twitter stream at heyprojectneon.  It’s mostly cell phone pix of small signs I come across when I don’t have my camera with me.

Shortly after the Project Neon Kickstarter campaign ends, a really cool show opens at the Museum of Arts and Design. It’s called Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities, and it features some cool stuff, including the work of an artist whose sculptures I’ve long wanted to see in person: Alan Wolfson. His work is meticulously detailed and each sculpture does an amazing job of capturing the essence of a slice (time- and space-wise) of New York, though he does take a few artistic liberties with details. I think this show may only have one piece of his (Canal St. Cross-Section, shown below), but one is better than none, so I’m definitely going to go check it out. I wish I could make models one tenth this good. And the other stuff in the show looks pretty intersting, too. I’m a little worried that four themes are three too many for a show like this, but I’ll report back. See you there?

Just a bunch of stainless steel rods outlining a piece of sky or landscape, depending on your point of view. So poetic. I love it–I love the way it looks like a pencil drawing (remind you a bit of a certain blog’s logo?), I like that the lines don’t quite meet at the top, I love that it’s a real thing making an imaginary sign come to life, I love that it’s minimal (just a bunch of stainless steel rods) but also chaotic and dense at the same time. So great!

As someone who has, in fact, worked on renderings that probably got used on the less imaginative versions of these signs, I’m happy to see others put their skills to more creative uses. You can help fund the project and get cool premiums on that Kickstarter site.

The thing I recently found myself very much needing an outlet for is drawing. I would like to be a better drawer, and the act of drawing is a slow, immersing meditation on a thing, which can be a tall cool glass of water during the long hot days of overcaffeination and REM living. I was doing a little drawing at work (just some graphics for a map), which is something I rarely do, and I realized how much I miss it. I used to carry a sketchbook around, but I haven’t done that lately. So I started a drawing blog. And what better thing to draw than things I like and want? They’re a bit challenging, since I don’t have the thing in front of me but have to work off of other people’s images, but it’s pleasing to celebrate something I like and think about its shape and color.

The new project is also about desire, delayed gratification, and anticipation. As a trained designer I care deeply about the forms of the things around me, but as an underpaid architect I don’t always have the ability to buy the most wonderful things right away. So I will channel all that into some nice drawings.

It’s The Fulfillment Center because the drawings are for sale for the price it would cost to acquire the subject of the drawing. So if someone* buys the drawing of the Tremont Nail Sample Set, I will mail off a print and then use the funds acquired to go buy the awesome display of the history of nails and post of photo of the acquisition. So in addition to the art aspect,  it’s also an elaborate trade, and a project about value and money and possibility. (You can see all the drawings arrayed on the archive page.)

Mostly, though, it’s just about the drawing. Drawing is fun! You should try it!

* Unfortunately, close friends and family are not eligible to participate, except during periods of exemption including major holidays and birthdays.

Not everything there is to my taste, but there are all kinds of amazing embroidery projects, from baseball cards to bar codes. But my favorite by far are the architectural drawings of Peter Crawley. Simple black lines of embroidery on paper, they’re crisp and minimal, but still a bit fuzzy and handmade. Perfect! Check out his site for more great drawings, including a typographical drawing that I’m also pretty keen on. It almost makes me want to take up embroidery again, something I haven’t really done since I finished that rooster potholder in about fifth grade…

OK, maybe I’m a little defeated by the heat—or not defeated, but slowed down a bit. But I’m still in love with the expansive space of summer, the bike rides, the adventures. Summer may be a stinky, sticky, sweaty beast (especially here in the concrete jungle), but it’s a stinky, sticky, sweaty beast I want to hug and give a big sloppy kiss. Though I wouldn’t mind if the heat island effect were tamed a bit with more cool & green roofs. New York is a tricky city to design for, though—a cool roof doesn’t melt snow and ice as well, and we’ll certainly have plenty of that come February. If only we could build deciduous buildings. Until we figure that out, though, I’m just happy New York has planted so many new street trees in the last few years. They’ve transformed many blocks from summertime deserts to oases of shade. Street trees are the best. Give them some love if you can by watering, keeping dogs away, planting flowers to shade and protect their tiny patches of soil, and avoiding stepping in that soil (soil compaction keeps necessary water from reaching their roots through the tiny opening in the pavement.)

I am loving these summery little prints of paintings (all based on photos) by Etsian Leah Giberson. They help me remember what’s so great about summer when I occasionally get cranky and crazy like everyone else in this overheated metropolis:

I think I need to buy one…  I just have to decide which one.

I hope you’re all staying cool and eating plenty of ice cream. And if you’re short in the ice cream department, just give me a call and I’ll bring some over—my new ice cream maker has been getting a real workout for the past month.