Took my design students to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, walkable from our campus. We met a conservator who’s also looking at designing accessible replicas of artworks: tactile 3D printing, textile models, more.

The famous atrium of the Gardner Museum, designed to look like a Venetian palace.

Helen Pynor, La Réunion, 2006, here.

A group of people sits at the bottom of a swimming pool in white plastic chairs, arranged in a circle as for a meeting.

Bought this way early for my husband’s bday.

The cover of Arvo Part’s Journey to is Musical Language, a graphic novel by Joonas Sildre

“[V]ery common design patterns — retweets, quote tweets, replies, mentions — are all behaviors that users originated, which where then captured by Twitter… sarahendren.com/2024/10/0…

So much wisdom in this beautiful conversation with Father Greg Boyle looking back at 30+ years of Homeboy Industries. One of the humanitarian heroes of our time.

Still in my Lewis Hyde phase — unsure how I didn’t really know about Trickster before now.

The cover of Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde.

Would love recommendations for books about Ignatian approaches to culture/making.

I wrote about disability social media trends and the question of imperfection.

I talked to students some weeks ago about affordances and limitations in technology, and I mentioned in passing the Ordo Amoris, the ordering of loves. They have really latched on to this ancient idea! Choices, tradeoffs, limitations.

David Cayley’s intellectual biography of Ivan Illich is nicely organized — I just finished the chapter on Deschooling Society; Cayley outlines the various reviews and criticisms of it as companion to its sources, timing in Illich’s life, highlight passages and arguments.

Finished revisions on a paper about interdisciplinary work using Howard Gardner’s idea of “fruitful asynchrony” in creativity, and positing my own framework for creative inquiry between art, design, and engineering. Looking forward to it being out in the world — a nice summation of my last decade.

Sublime afternoon hearing Mozart and Haydn requiems at Boston Symphony Hall with a friend. Mild autumn day, bus ride there and back.

“I need a way through what often feels like a binary choice when institutions disappoint us: adopt a “see no evil” denial about their failures and defend them from the barricades, or give up on them altogether. I think we’ve seen, as a society, where that second choice leads

What a beautiful evening hearing Dougald Hine in conversation with Lewis Hyde and hosted by the generous @mbattles. Can’t wait to read Hine’s new book.

I need to write a Letter to a Young Woman Engineer Who’s Ambivalent About Her Standing in the Field post. It’s not the message you’re thinking of.

RIP artist Rebecca Horn. Her mysterious “prosthetic” sculptures and performances were so important to me early on. I wrote about Finger Gloves for Art in America a couple of years ago.

Rebecca Horn in the 1970s stands in a spare studio room with her "finger gloves" of long metal rake-like spikes scraping the walls.

Anne Snyder is a visionary thinker, writer, convener, and this conversation gets at some of her earned insight. Recommended.

Cambridge celebrities: Saw Jill Lepore this morning. She was post workout, headphones in, so I decided not to fangirl. But so tempted!

We all went up to Halibut Point yesterday. Glorious.

From behind, my family walks the monumental rocks at Halibut Point, ocean stretching out beyond.

I hit pre-order so fast for my friend Chad Holley’s debut novel, coming out in November!