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WE'RE SUPPORTING

Most people working in her genre use digital paint to create their work, but I love that fantasy artist Stephanie Pui-Mun Law still uses watercolors and pencils to create faries, monsters, and magical landscapes. Her digital pieces are also pretty good. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

San Fransisco-based artist Alexis MacKenzie must be patient. She has to be in order to create beautiful collages from the vintage books that she collects. There’s an amazing amount of detail in each piece. Elements are painstakingly transplanted from book to paper with scissors and glue. No Photoshop cut n’ pastes here.

The philosophy of a beginning is to me, a wonderful concept. I really enjoy flicking through the back catalogues of a musician and discovering their origin, then tracing their musical journey to the present. So for American-born, Paris-based sister duo CocoRosie, who released their third album The Adventure of Ghosthouse and Stillborn to much acclaim, making the trip to their beginnings is more than worth the journey: their debut album, Le Maison de Mon Reve (released back in 2004) was a gentle stroll through their pop and classical influences, which melt together seamlessly into a backdrop for their unique and enchanting voices.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

Look closely at the walls of the Diga del Cingino dam in Italy, at the small brown dots that line the grainy surface. They are European Ibex and they live in these remarkable gravity defying surrounds, eating the moss and lichen and licking the salt off the dam wall. Read more

WE'RE READING

I’ve seen a lot of strange things on the Internet, but this Tumblr just baffles me. It’s called Animals with Casts, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Picture after picture of different animals wearing casts. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Last weekend I went to the Golden West in Baltimore to check out the What Cheer? Brigade, a marching band from Providence. I wasn’t expecting much, but when they opened with a cover of Slayer’s Raining Blood, my knees buckled. I think I could hear a musak version of that riff, and I’d still bang my head. The rest of the band’s set was just as riotous, with people dancing so hard, you’d think we were at Mardi Gras. I haven’t had that much fun at a show in ages.

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WE'RE WEARING

Fred Perry has, with the consent of her family, just released a very mod collection created in collaboration with Amy Winehouse before she died. The proceeds from the collection’s sales will be donated to the soon-to-be-created Amy Winehouse Foundation.