A few photos from Kenya. Spending time with Jess, Ramesh, Matt, Shireen and Ariana for weekend excursion at Sweetwaters Camp in Nanyuki near Mt. Kenya.
Dave Radparvar
A glimpse into my thoughts, findings, and adventures.
Dave Radparvar
Just completed my self determined design course after six months of diving into design and build. I guess this would be my thesis. Started at 9pm finished at 7am.
From M.Fine’s Reclaimed Lumber yard to our new tables at the Holstee Work/Shop.
The Holstee pallet and scaffolding wood bar top.
May was intense. Between preparing and building for our booth at the National Stationary Show, moving, building and buying for the new work/shop, apartment searching and working - June was filled with days spent running from 8am to 2am. I got to apply a lot of what I have been learning over the last 5 months from sourcing reclaimed lumber and taking it through the milling process to build our new office tables, to bringing our booth designs to life, nearly exactly as I had mocked up, with the help of builder extraordinaire, Michael Steam-Wimple.
With Jess off in Europe for the greater part of the month, I lost most sense of time and work-life balance sensibilities. Working into the early morning at the new studio and I also tripling down on classes in Furniture Upholstery, A Drawing Intensive, and a Textile Design class. Once the storm of the office move are complete I am looking forward to getting back into a healthier routine with yoga, meditation and more early morning tennis. Though Jess and I were able to squeeze in some awesome adventures before her travels including making our own sushi rolls at Avenue B.
The month flew by as blur of coffee, lumber, pizza, splinters, uhauls, and hardware stores. It was probably the hardest and longest consecutive work periods of the last few years but the final look of the booth, the positive vibe of the new work/shop, and the team energy around it make it was all worth it and very fulfilling.
Seems like things have been in fast forward these days, but here is my long overdue April recap just a few days before June…
April started with our Shopify meet up with the Kimchi Taco truck at our offices on 28th and Broadway, powder throwing at the Holi Festival deep off the L, and a tour of the City Distillery after their industrial yard sale.
April had its highs and lows. The low In April was a root canal - ow! And most exciting - we signed our lease for the Studio space at 4th and Bond - our own space for Holstee! My 6 month learning sprint continued with the completion of a Machine Milling class, and starting an intermediate bicycle mechanics class and a plastics working class.
The eventful month ended with a scenic trip to the Adirondack’s with Jess, staying right on Mirror Lake at the Golden Arrow eating some amazing local food and learning a lot about Maple production.
To celebrate National Bike Month, we’d love to see more cops on bikes.
What positive changes do you want to see in your cities? Send us your ideas + tweets (@HOLSTEE) and tag #moreofthis.
nyc would benefiet greatly if more nypd would opt to be on bikes rather than cars (or horses). they would have better connection to the communities they serve, get in (even!) better shape and probably be happier. while this isn’t a replacement, but there’s a clear opportunity to balance it out.
Good morning Mirror Lake. @goldenarrow #adirondacks
March 2013: Balance and following through
My personal theme for march was following through. I had started a lot of new habits in the past few months and started some new projects and my goal for March was not to create any new habits but rather follow through and make sure I could balance what I have already started.
In March I picked up where I left off with classes at 3RD Ward and took an intermediate wood shop class, a metal machining class, a hand tool workshop, a lamp making workshop, a cutting board workshop, and a knife skills class.
In the theme of following through, I set on finishing to build my floor lamp which I started welding and cutting wood for back in January.Photos to come.
I also spent a week in California with my family over Passover, where I squeezed in a morning to get my motorcycle license.
The month was awesome. Both fun and productive, and it just flew by which is why I writing this a week late :-)
Book Review: Moonwalking with Einstein by Josh Foer
Like most people I have had moments when I could remember specific details of events that happened years ago and others where I couldn’t remember where I left my wallet or friends birthdays. Somewhere along the lines the Moonwalking with Einstein title and cover made an impression on me and when it was time to choose a new book I decided to give it a read. I was instantly taken by Josh’s writing style. A great balance of factual and anecdotal stories - I actually felt like contents of the book came in conversation sitting in the basement of his parents house where he spent a year training for his eventual winning position as the US Memory Champion.
As the summaries of the book hinted, the book doesn’t reveal ways on how to improve your memory overnight but more realistically explains why we somethings come naturally to our memory, why others are so difficult and how certain tasks like memorizing an entire deck of cards at records speeds under 30 seconds doesn’t make someone a ‘genius’ but rather shows there dedication and creativity.
The book also reminded me of a little game I used to play. I would sit and close my eyes, clearing my head. Then I would actively imagine nothing, which would take the form of total darkness. Then I would imaging changing the nothingness, the darkness to light - to a massive white canvas. Then I would try and find the edges or shape of the canvas, if my brain where a computer this is the moment it would crash, a way for me to break the canvas that we translate from the physical world into our minds. The only limit of our mind’s canvas size are the ones we artificially put in place.
I spend most of my creative time in a day dream. Designing, placing, building in my head while walking, cooking, talking or any moment when distraction and inspiration hits. Steve Jobs mentioned in his biography that the people the that find themselves being creative aren’t any smarter than others but that they are making more connections from different experiences, materials or observations, that would otherwise be stored in different places in the mind.
Moonwalking with Einstein confirmed the notion that how and where we place ideas and concepts in our mind make all the difference when it comes time to recall them. The book was a good refresher on the power and mystery of one of the most complex parts of the human body, definitely recommended.
Very excited about the @holstee manifesto design in Arabic + Hebrew. Launching at @seedsofpeace benefit tomorrow night.
From calling home to human-powered transportation to cooking, there are things we all know we need more of.
To celebrate these beautiful moments in life, we’re drafting up examples of things we love and staking claim to having #moreofthis. The uber talented Helen Williams (aka your very own Community Love Director) will be hand illustrating them, starting with the one here.
Have a #moreofthis moment or experience we should highlight? Recommendations are warmly invited: send us your tweets, and be sure to hashtag!
A time tested tool for positive change is to focus on the outcomes we want, rather than to dwell on the things we don’t. Lets see #moreofthis.
February 2013. Oaxaca City and Puerto Escondido, Mexico with my Holstee Family.
A month of clarity, new experiences, mezcal, inspiration, sun, sand and waves.
Makes me even more excited for a possible trip out to Japan at the end of this year!
Almost two years ago, two members of the Holstee community in Japan, Kenji Hiranabe and Satomi Joba, helped us translate the Holstee Manifesto into Japanese.
Today, thanks to the additional help of talented calligrapher Narisawa Shurei, we have a beautifully designed version of the Holstee Manifesto in traditional Japanese lettering.
In Shurei’s own words:
“The Holstee Manifesto reminded me of a Buddhist term ‘TEI-KAN,’ which means finding out the real nature of something. It also means to attain spiritual enlightenment. I created this artwork with ‘TEI-KAN’ in mind.”
It has been a real pleasure working with Shurei to create this poster, and I have learned a lot about Japanese calligraphy in the process. You can see more of her work on Shodo Arts and Sumi-Painting.
Please share the design with your Japanese-speaking friends!
