Ariele Alasko

Pretty pretty wood.

Ariele Alasko makes new life out of old discarded chairs and planks of food. Basically everything that has no use in life anymore has been rebirth!  I like how she added her own personal touch to each and every table or headboards or cheeseboards. No two product is the same, and it should feel special that you are the only person in the world who has that coffetable isn't it?

All images above are from Ariele Alasko

How cool would that headboard look in the bedroom? Something similar here would be Originals. Well, its not exactly the same as Alasko's handcrafted work (we see via images that every furniture Ariele built is from scratch, the rivets, the nails, the sawing, the polishing) but for the past few months, our eyes and mind are more open to be on the lookout for furnitures made of wood. Recently, we pop by Originals showroom to see for ourselves that dinner table I spotted in of their images from Facebook. 

Image via Originals

It's still a far fetch idea, but we've sort of know the look of our house interior. It'd be wicked.

Saturday Adventure at Pulau Ubin

We spent a Saturday last month in Pulau Ubin. There's practically no-where else to go in Singapore - locals spend their weekends traipsing in shopping centres, every neighbourhood has one or they eat while the young expats can fly off to neighbouring countries in a hearbeat. You can sit at your desk surfing random sites and Facebook-ing away and the next thing you know, 3 hours is gone just like that. Now back to Ubin, here's some photographs we took.

Ceramics

I'm always intrigued on crafters', designers' and artists' workspaces or studio. Jennifer Causey, one of my favouritest food & still life photographer undertakes The Makers project. Its a brilliant culmination of workspaces photographs under one roof. You can see the photographs here. I Love ceramics - those visits to cafes and restaurants gets me a bit pleased when I drink from a beautifully designed cups.

What are your favourites?

Images of Elephant Ceramics via The Makers

Tom Robinson

I was reading through this Les Masquent L'enfant blog written by a friend of mine and one of his entry got me clicking on the link to see these photos above. Brilliant eh? Places like Peru and Bolivia or even Colombia aren't one of the top tiered traveling destinations that locals here sought after. Given a chance, we would love to go there. The vacation photos that we see on and off through our wall feed in Facebook were relatively the same safe places - Bangkok, Perth, London, Rome, Jakarta. ( To be sure, steward and stewardess friends' are not counted ). So these photos by Tom Robinson ( you SHOULD see the rest of his pictures) offered a different insight on the less travelled places. I quite like the first picture of the kid with a condor carcass in a good state. What about you?

The Goodwin Project

This project follows the vagabond life of Aamion Goodwin and his wife, Daize plus their two kids. Apart from how I can crave for their lifestyle (always on the move, constantly exposed to the beauty of nature) plus you can take away the technology and advertisements, the cinematography as whole is impeccable. These images are a series of portraits taken off from their blog. There is striking similarities of photography style by Mike Matas, its the rich colours, fine details and all. The photographs here are so alive till it makes us want to jump on the next plane and travel to India.

All images from The Goodwin Project

Infinity List

Tattly New Promo Video

We love it!

Yerin Mok

One of the first few photographs that I thought was quaint and soulful - I guess Yerin Mok delivers photographs that provoke your emotions. I remembered googling 'Photographers' at 17 or so, and in one way or another, stumbled upon Yerin's work. Then I showed to Dave through the computer in the school library and tried hard to explain to him why I liked Yerin's photos so much. I remember he only muttered a short response, 'Ah hah, I know why you like that...' and mumbled something else.

Then at 18, I bought my first digital SLR, had a few test shots with Hafiz near Ann Siang Hill (back then, digital SLR wasn't really a mainstream camera yet) naively thinking, " I've got the world in my hands and thought that every photograph I took was cool. Yes, seriously. Looking back, it was terrible. The rest is history, though I didn't really pursue photography as a career.

Met a photographer this morning for a web design project and she asked me ' So I hear you're a photographer yourself?' and I just replied ' I don't consider myself as a photographer, it's just a hobby ( which I never pursue actively)". That got me thinking and asking myself, when the heck was the last time I ever pick up a camera and look through the viewfinder as a photography-joy. I can't remember. Countless bargainings of quotations when I did my stint taking photos of wedding just killed my interest. What started out as an ambitious I-want-to-capture-the-moment crap gradually turns out to be Im-tired-of-the-noisefromthekompangsanddeejaysandretarddangdutsongs. But what I know is I still love to take portraits of people, an intimate one-to-one work environment for free - because I just enjoy every bit of it. I know you probably don't give a hoot about it, but I would like to share the first few photographs that got me started out taking pictures.

This-is-just-beautiful.

If I've pulled you this far, view the rest of her photos here

May you complete what you started out. I salute Alvelyn, Tiffany, Khairil and a few other schoolmates who are still persevering hard to get to where they wish to be with their photographs.

Our short workvacation to Bandung in October

Friends talked about why we should visit Bandung first before exploring the rest of Indonesia has got to offer. Back in our Art schools, classmates who did visit the city talked about how affordable things was and there was so much art and design culture & atmosphere to soak. But of course, it depends on your intentions and what you wish to see in the first place. With only 4 days to spend, you could easily stretch it to a week if you wish to experience for yourself or dwell with young local artists and crafters alike. 


According to our local guide, Bandung, also known as the city of flowers and Paris of Java, it is the provincial capital of West Java and the third largest city of Indonesia. Bandung is located at a distance of 175 km from Jakarta and provides a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of Jakarta. The majority of the population is the native Sundanese from West Java, who are famous for their extroverted, easy-going nature and are reputed as zealous guardians of their ancient culture.


Do you feel to compelled to go now? If you have a guide, just tell him/her what you want to do specifically. The craters and tea plantations offer a stunning view of the southern part of the city and remarkably, I do have to say that the local are super friendly. Generally soft spoken, they are patient as well. Here's are some pictures from the trip :

I got reminded of this ad when I scrutinised a leaf. The guide taught us how to select the perfect first grade tea leaf and the image of a caterpillar just pop in my head. Plus the distros below, local and foreign clothing labels. As a usual Singaporean, we went in and out of the shops to select some apparels but we admired more of the interior design than what's hanging on the shelves.

Before Camilla left for home, we had breakfast by the verandah while people watching kids going to school right below. So that's about it, if you know me in person, how cut and snappy my posts are over here is exactly how I talk. Right, let's move on. Focus on other things elsewhere. So we'll probably be heading there again with our moms next month and then to ''sit by the river and drink a bottle of Coke'' ( Hasyim, 2011) in March with Camilla and a few others. I'll substitute Coke to tea please.

Have a great weekend folks! What's your plan?

New YouTube Interface

We are excited, this is what I woke up to. A new design is a fresher start for cold, rainy December. I've been having weird dreams in my sleep lately. I visited a shop in JB that sells huge stacks of Adobe HTML 1-5 like those World Book Encyclopedia and how I was going to make a call to my boss informing her that the HTMLs package were selling for only $42. Right.

We've got new plans ahead. We might possibly be visiting Bandung again in January to kickstart a second round of arrangements for our project. To be honest, we've fell in love with the city.