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Adventures in making art and living sustainably.

how far we've come...

By Shira | Aug 18, 08 10:23 AM

And by the way, Ellen and Portia just got married!

"Shira Golding - Sex Icon"

By Shira | Aug 14, 08 07:09 PM

Well...not exactly, but that's what the email read when I got the assignment to create the graphic for The Macktivist, the new sex advice column in The Indypendent. The first installment by R. Alvarez is a pretty awesome read.

Spike Jonze Captures the "Real Al Gore"

By Shira | Aug 12, 08 11:32 AM

The video below was made in January 2005 by Spike Jonze, director of Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and many awesome music and skateboarding videos. I just saw it a few days ago on Wholphin Issue #1, recently released on Netflix.

While Jonze was hired by Gore's campaign to make the film at the time, it was barely used and never broadcast on TV. Some people think that if it had been widely seen, it may have impacted the election. I think any candidate could benefit from being the subject of an intimate cinema verité portrait, assuming they're as nice as and functional as Gore comes off in this piece.

Old photos are fun

By Shira | Aug 12, 08 11:23 AM

That's me on the left and my dad on the right. Our friend Tricia posted some awesome old photos of her and her family to flickr a while back, and it inspired me to do the same. Check out my new family album set on flickr.

Some recent vegan deliciousness

By Ari | Aug 11, 08 07:13 PM

I post a lot of food photos on Flickr and I thought I'd share some recent good ones:

AMAZING vegan pastry!

Brussels sprouts, gnocci and quinoa at Lauren's place - she's a very good cook.

Bananas, strawberries, vegan ice cream, and Ahlaska! chocolate sauce.

Fancy vegan food at Fressen in Toronto with Dante.

Vegan udon noodles.

At Organic Heights vegan restaurant, Brooklyn. Really good food, and really sweet people. It's a new one, check it out if you're in NYC...

Check out my vegan food photoset for more cruelty-free food. Go vegan! (PDF)

The Great Turning: The world getting better, already in progress

By Ari | Aug 11, 08 11:06 AM

If you read one book this year, please make it David C. Korten's The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. I really think this book has the potential to change the world. Actually, I think this book is only one small part of the movement it describes - not only is another world possible, it's being built right now. This book explains what's happening all around us clearly and with compassion, and invites us to take part in the great turning of human civilization from age-old patterns of domination and exploitation, to cooperation, partnership, and peace.

Korten comes from a mainstream U.S. background - he worked for years trying to help folks around the world improve their lives through the application of global capitalist strategies. He discovered that this didn't help but rather hurt people, and over time turned instead to more progressive means. Today he is co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network and YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, and works on a host of other amazing projects aimed at creating a better world right now. The Great Turning is Korten's careful explanation of where we've gone wrong, what's happening right now, and how we can turn it all around for the better.

Continue reading "The Great Turning: The world getting better, already in progress..." »

6 best practices: Engaging in social networking for social change

By Ari | Aug 9, 08 03:56 PM

as a vegan lesbian, i find this doubly gross
Originally uploaded by arimoore

I'm a Flickr addict. I have nearly 450 contacts and am in over 280 groups; I admin or moderate an additional 8 groups, two of which I started. Sometimes I worry I'm spending too much time on the site, but I get so much out of it I think the effort is more than worth the return - I've gotten feedback on my drawings that's been a huge motivator and inspiration for future work; I've had dialogues with activists and others that have gone on for days and changed minds all around (including my own, many times); folks have found my work and used in their own projects or published it with their articles - and even an upcoming book - while I've found images to use in pieces for our clients, in lieu of stock photography. All in all it's been a very positive experience, and I've picked up a lot about how to be more effective as an activist and as a member of the Flickr community. I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.

Continue reading "6 best practices: Engaging in social networking for social change..." »

Kind comics

By Ari | Aug 9, 08 02:51 PM

I love web comics and have been reading them religiously as long as I've had an internet connection. In the past year I discovered that a few I'd known and loved and read every day for a very long time were driving me crazy - little oppressive things here and there stopped being funny, then stopped being things I could ignore. So I cut them out and am now reading a different set of comics that are smarter and more progressive. Yay! Read on for links to my favorites and to some particularly good strips.

Continue reading "Kind comics..." »

A community can look like this

By Ari | Aug 9, 08 10:47 AM

a community can look like this (color version)
Originally uploaded by arimoore

Shira and I continue to do research on our future housing options. The drawing here is me puzzling over certain house types and just messing around with pretty shapes. (I feel like I'm getting better at drawing trees freehand thanks to all of my tree drawings! I guess that's what happens when you don't draw much else for a couple of years.)

Making these drawings, and reading about natural building and the owner-builder concept, is liberating and empowering. Reading through Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter and Shelter, you can see how capable and powerful ordinary people are at creating beautiful and livable solutions themselves, without any help from "professionals." You begin to see that folks have been making their own homes and workshops and such for as long as we've been able to improvise tools and manipulate our environment. Over time we've come up with better and better ways of housing ourselves. Strawbale, cob, stone and other natural building materials are safer, easier to use, more energy-efficient, and far less expensive than the chemical-leaching, wasteful drywall and vinyl siding and asphalt shingles and other stuff that so many of us use in new houses today.

Continue reading "A community can look like this..." »

Rev Billy on Fox Business Happy Hour

By Ari | Aug 8, 08 01:32 PM

Check out this incredible video of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping dropping some science on Fox News. The host really gets into it, though she's a little shocked by his indictment of capitalism. On Fox! He dissed capitalism on Fox! You have to watch it. Oh, and stop shopping!

Via the Stop Shopping Monitor
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