So, as long as you're going to have to stay home, you might as well enjoy yourself, and learn something to boot...
Art has the power to transcend the everyday, and to universalize the fun and the happiness that we might be feeling, as well as help all of us to overcome together the pain an suffering that's in our lives. Unfortunately, most public art is decorative and static: there's almost no interaction, nothing intimate or personally meaningful about it. We'd like to change all that...
And we will. Read how >
We're planting our flag in Newport.
Cities have a fantastic opportunity to encourage civic pride by turning their citizens into literal flag wavers, but the sad truth is most municipal banners are known as SOBs (Seals on a Bedsheet). Even though Newport’s flag is historically significant, featuring the Newport Tower and the motto “Amor Vincet Omni” (Love Conquers All), it probably won’t delight any of the residents or tourists who don’t know its importance.
Want to park your bicycle with some zip and class?
As designers we believe we have a responsibility to create objects and products that, no matter how trivial or seemingly mundane, are meaningful, unique, and fun. We reject the status quo, laugh at the lack of imagination we see all around us, disdain intellectual dishonesty and will never, ever accept as "good" mediocrity or anything with less than excellent workmanship and form serving purpose first. With that in mind, we were inspired to make the zip code bike rack – it's practical, beautiful, encourages healthy living, and shouts out our civic pride loud and clear.
We see them sprinkled around town, promoting Newport's commitment to healthy living and a healthy environment, and sponsored by local businesses and private citizens who want to make a positive contribution to our seaside haven. They are the perfect fundraising opportunity, with all proceeds going to support local charities.
Finding yourself in the bilge of a boat.
This is the story of second chances. Fifteen or so years ago Bill Kenyon was your typical middle manager at a food services company, working seventy hours a week, as he had been doing for the previous 25 years, and wondering what it was all for, what it was all about; why; and what the heck? The grind, the appalling hours, the endless travel were all beginning to take a huge toll on him, had been taking a toll on him, to be honest, for a long time. He and his wife were on a boat in St. Martins celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary when he decided to quit, just chuck it all and start something new. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew it wasn’t going to be managing breakfast, lunch and dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
A legacy carved in stone.
A few weeks back I stopped by The John Stevens Shop on Thames Street, the oldest continually operated company in the same location in America, I think, on one of my daily strolls around the new neighborhood, and knocked on the door to say hello and introduce myself. A dog started barking like crazy. Bark, bark, bark.
Finally an older gentleman answered the door. I asked if he was Nick. He said no, Nick was his son. His name was John, but everyone called him “Fud.” Bark, bark, bark!
I explained that I had recently moved to Charles Street and just wanted to say hello. He asked me my name and when I told him he asked if I spoke Italian. I said un pocotino. So he chimed right in in Italian that he lived in Rome for a year in the '60s, and loved it. Bark, bark, BARK!
Read the rest of the multi-lingual and multi-generational adventure here.
Can you go home again?
I first moved to Newport on May 19th, 1980 – the day after I resigned my commission in the U.S. Army – a fatuous, and ironically undisciplined twerp with magnificent ignorance. I'm moving back on September 4th, 2019 and I'm wondering if there's going to be a noticeable difference either in Newport or in myself all these years and miles later. Doubtful.
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