Simplification

September 15, 2019 Carl Barnett

Carl Barnett Design/Studio - INTERIORS — **Carl Barnett Design/Studio** **- INTERIORS**

It always comes back for me to simplicity, an attempt to counter our frenetic and challenging world: what design can do. We are at a place in time where thought and action need attending, a more intentional approach to living.

Carl Barnett Design/Studio - ART — **Carl Barnett Design/Studio** **- ART**

How we live privately affects how we live publicly, and certainly vise versa. We are at a crossroads of choice, to be affected or to affect, to find within us the capacity for change, for better living and doing: inspiration and hope.

NYC Artist Andy Graves - SHOP — **NYC Artist Andy Graves -** **SHOP**

NYC Artis Kathryn Robinson-Millen - SHOP — **NYC Artis Kathryn Robinson-Millen -** **SHOP**

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.

Gandhi

NYC Artist Michele Quan — **NYC Artist** **Michele Quan**

BPN Architects - DEZEEN — **BPN Architects -** **DEZEEN**

Support

September 14, 2019 Carl Barnett

Carl Barnett Design/Studio - PHILANTHROPY Housing Works/Design On A Dime — **Carl Barnett Design/Studio** **- PHILANTHROPY** **Housing Works/Design On A Dime**

In this time of uncertainty and division, beauty is the elixir, and support, the anchor. This path of ours is not singular, it’s woven in many directions with other’s layered within.

Though the future is always uncertain, how we live today dents the vessel of tomorrow, slowly forming what is to become.

New York Artist Michele Quan — **New York Artist** **Michele Quan**

Furniture Maker And Artist CBM Design Group — **Furniture Maker And Artist** **CBM Design Group**

It is my belief and current challenge, that each of us have the ability to affect the future by how we live today, supporting ourselves as we support others. This is my constant rumination, how can I affect my future while affecting and engaging in the lives of others.

It is here that I have planted myself, in the middle of support and supported: a circular motion of doing, living and inspiration. Design, art, words and architecture. Under this umbrella is where I feel most affective, where the creative mind and action come into play.

Politics aside, though never too far, I feel the necessity to put my own mark onto the surface of life, into how we live and the future I will never see.

“This is how the architecture of time works, many hands, one day at a time.”

Through support and inspiration, the future is malleable: affected by the actions of mind and hand. This is how the architecture of time works, many hands, one day at a time.

NYC Artist Kathryn Robinson-Millen - SHOP — **NYC Artist** **Kathryn Robinson-Millen** **- SHOP**

Morgan Spaulding | PHAEDO - SHOP — **Morgan Spaulding | PHAEDO** **- SHOP**

There are many organizations and individuals who have the same belief, that in order to affect the future started yesterday, but today is always a good second choice, starting wherever we are. To live better is to do better, has become my mantra, going beyond how I speak, into what I do.

ARCHITECT Peter Zumthor — **ARCHITECT** **Peter Zumthor**

“This is how we enjoy life, how we fill it with meaning and find our own purpose.”

The work of many makers have the intrinsic value to inspire by proxy, by the inspiration of beauty: visual and physical engagement. This is how we enjoy life, how we fill it with meaning and find our own purpose.

Through the endeavors of others, life expands, affecting how we live our lives and view the future.

NYC Furniture Designer Peg Woodworking - SHOP — **NYC Furniture Designer** **Peg Woodworking** **- SHOP**

Engagement and support are the truest efforts in building an inspired life, whether its voting or purchasing work by local makers. A better future evolves from expansive circles of inclusion and support: inspiration, action and hope.

Meaning and Things

September 8, 2019 Carl Barnett

It is through creative expression that life finds its voice. Where the language of things and the words we attach to them, all build the sentences that describe how we live, layered by the meanings we have chosen.

This is how we make sense of the world, how we connect the dots between us and them, this and that, and our emotional and physical selves.

Our world of things is a life of emotion and meaning: animal, vegetable, and mineral. And a life of purpose is built around how we move through these meanings we’ve created, all well crafted of prose and formed from ideologies.

Meaning and purpose are the hallmarks of living, they are the guide posts and gauges: compasses in an era of troubled paths.

“We’ve built our communities around all that has grounding, and the things of utility, meaning and purpose.”

As humans we are gatherers, seekers and wonderers, still telling stories under starlight and fire.

We’ve built our communities around all that has grounding, and the things of utility, meaning and purpose.

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things."

Mary Oliver

Impact, Wonder and Magic

September 4, 2019 Carl Barnett

In this era of complexity, moving forward is a matter of shifting mindsets and reflecting on who we are: our essence and intentions onward.

Ballet dancer Sergei Polunin — Ballet dancer **Sergei Polunin**

A continual motion of sinuous paths: Weft and warp and tethered ends. Of good deeds done, hopes and fears.

To live fuller, is to move through fear. To know oneself within our living: our impact, wonder and magic.

“We ought to try, by the example of our own lives to prove that life is love and wonder and that that nation is doomed which penalizes those of its citizens who recognize and rejoice in this fact.”

James Baldwin

Science and Poetry

September 1, 2019 Carl Barnett

How a space feels is paramount: its emotion. Inspired by the objects within, and those who engage. We are gatherers by nature, attempting to make sense of life, or at least the emotions we have towards it.

Astrology is the precursor to astronomy, it was the way then of understanding life under the black and vast unknown. A process of unraveling the mysteries and wonders of living: our need to order the chaos.

“Science speaks to the factual, the outside world, as poetry speaks to the inner world, the landscape of emotions.”

This is how we live now, making sense of the emotional and the chaotic, by way of the physical world: culminating science and poetry. Science speaks to the factual, the outside world, as poetry speaks to the inner world, the landscape of emotions.

“Though science has opened up the world and the unknown, emotion remains a great mystery.”

As we move forward in centuries, the mysteries are lifting, we are showing ourselves who we truly are. Science has made strides, the stars that were once gods we now sit upon, looking back at ourselves: who we are, where we are. Though science has opened up the world and the unknown, emotion remains a great mystery. This is where creation steps in, where poetry of words and objects express all that we are, within the swirling obyss.

We are losing our way, as we find our way. The light that we search for is us. As we destroy we rebuild, surrounding ourselves with meaning and purpose that moves us forward: building lives that inspire.

This is how we live and what we strive for, what the north star has always pulled from us. To seek, in a sense is our way forward, filling the gaps in between.

Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.