Just your average octopus. Not psychic.

via BSU

Enjoy Florida beaches & The Wolfsonian’s Modern Dutch Collection at the State University Libraries of Flordia. This goes out to my old boss/friend Arjen & who is moving back to Holland this summer with his wife Christie. They will be missed and hopefully visited by me in Holland soon!

1. Ons thuis : geïllustreerd maandschrift voor kinderen van 7-10 jaar. (Book Cover)
2. Industrieschool : uitnoodiging tot een bezoek aan de tentoonstelling. (Invitation)
3. Borduur-Patronen voor klein en groot (Book Cover) / door G.W.D. & W.D
4. Sconce in the Amsterdam School-style manufactured by Winkelman & van der Bijl, ca. 1920
5. Number plates, ca. 1920

Boy baby (eselu naña) complete

Clear Sky, 5th stage

Girl baby (eselu osa), complete.

Gopher, just before releasing the string

Cat’s cradle, New South Wales, 1968.

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A couple days ago I was riding the subway along with a bunch of well dressed teens. Two of the teens were using a shoelace to play cat’s cradle. It was fascinating. I think they made it to level six, which became a star-like shape, then abandoned the game. The best part : a friend helping with cradle moves wore tights collaged with cats. (kinda like this with the coolness of this – i digress)

Here are wobbly photographs from the early 1900s of a woman from South Central California Sierra Miwok tribe exhibiting various cat’s cradle and rope drawing games. The last image is of an Aboriginal girl who broke tribal law, refusing to marry an elder chosen for her. She found refuge with anthropologists in New South Wales, and shows off her cat’s cradles.

via Online Archive of California – Guide to the California Ethnographic Field Photographs, 1900-1960
last image via National Library of Australia

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UPDATE : commenter/friend Jeff H shares this incredible string figure home video.

In this video clip, my grandma tells the Navajo story of how coyote had placed the stars in the sky and shows how to make two constellations using string, Dilyéhé (the Pleiades) and So’ Bidee’í (Star With Horns). She continues by showing other string games, like Many Stars (So’ Łání), Two Coyotes Running Apart (Ma’ii Ałts’áá’ Yilwołí), Open the Gate, Lightening (Atsinitl’ish), the Arrowhead (Béésh Sist’ógii), Unraveling (Wóltáád), and Wood Carrier (Chizh Yooyéłí). – daybreakwarrior

The evolution of a pouch. Never mind the fanny pack.
The pouch. The most useful form of a purse—especially on road trips.

The Invocation of Chief Peo-Peo Tholekt via WSU
Jean Cacharel, long bright blue cardigan, pullover, trousers, beret & pouch via VADS
MANIMAL, pouch belt new for Spring/Summer 2010! Love it. via MANIMAL

Decorative & decadent—Victorian era marbleized papers. Swoossshhhhh!
via University of Washington

Yesterday I took a break from work and walked south in the warm sunshine to the Smithsonian National Museum of Native Americans. See the show, A Song for the Horse Nation on view until July 7. It’s glorious! Animals & bead work equal love.