Have a good Labor Day weekend!

If I knew without a doubt I would not fail, I would start my own design business. The stakes are high and I have little (but growing) experience in business. Pam (myownworld2100) brings up a good point.

We let fear dictate what we do in our lives. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to quit my job tomorrow to start my own business, but I am preparing myself for a day when I’m ready to strike out on my own. We can take steps to overcome those fears and move ourselves closer to what we want in life.

What holds you back? Make a list of five or more things you’d do if you knew you wouldn’t fail. Take a step towards conquering at least one of those goals/fears.

—Frank Goble

Katharine Sidelnik is a photographer I went to school with at RIT. She’s currently shooting some amazing work in Uganda.

About Maria, the woman in the above photograph from Kat’s website:
Maria was out in the fields with her 4 co-wives and husband when the LRA appeared. The soldiers killed the husband and after demanding the women sit down, they proceeded to mutilate all of them. Maria had her ears and mouth cut off with a panga knife…

This photograph was taken after reconstructive surgery.

To see more of Kat’s work, visit her website at katside.com. She periodically updates her work from Uganda on her blog at http://katsees.tumblr.com/

—Lewis Carroll

Clean up your space by getting rid of stuff you know you don’t use anymore.

If you have a hard time ditching things because you think you may need it in the future, put these items in a box and place it in a closet. Wait a month (or two). At the end of the time frame, take the box straight to a donation center. Do not open it. Just get rid of it.

Once you take a box to be donated, start a new one. You’d be surprised at how much stuff you don’t need anymore and how much more productive you’ll feel.

In the late 70s, Billy West, then a full-time musician, began performing voices onstage in standup comedy routines in Boston. Eventually, he moved to New York and joined the Howard Stern show where he voiced “grotesque send-ups of the pretentious glitterati of the time and performed in the rarefied air of unscripted radio comedy,” according to his website.

He then went on to do shows like Doug (playing Doug Funny) and Ren and Stimpy for Nickelodeon. He has also played Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Popeye, but you probably know him best from Futurama, where he plays Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, among many others.

In this clip, Professor Farnsworth leads Fry to Dr. Zoidberg’s office for a physical. West plays all three voices.

He’s clearly a talented fellow. But how does he do it?

“You have to have some kind of power of observation, almost like a trained observer. You watch people and study them the way an alien would…” he told contributor Dave Davies in the July 15, 2010 interview on Fresh Air. “It’s also kind of an ear a voice performer has, where they’re able to hear things in real life, and they’re able to grab hold of it and then amplify it through another character or a direct impression.”

The only real downside I can see with this space is the limitations of natural light. You can see how quickly the window light drops off on the left side of the room. Otherwise, I’m in love with how the lines play off each other. They intersect in these ways that lead your eye to look at each corner of the room. In fact, I’m reminded of the inside of a sea shell.

I love when I see architects use space in an interesting way. It makes me think about my own creativity and how I can bend widely held standards to produce new ideas.

(Found via Camp Site. To view more images of the Spiral Shape House, visit the Camp Site website.)

—Albert Einstein

Take an hour to really consider what you’d do if someone handed you $100,000. How do you think it would change your creative output? Do you think you’d be more creative? Less?

What’s the most creative think you can think to do with a nice little chunk of change?