Dürer painted this hare in 1502, in watercolor, hair by hair — thousands of strokes, each one placed. Five centuries later it still looks ready to move. Look closely at the eye: a window is reflected in it, the window of the room where he sat working.

See it larger →

Cotten wrote “Freight Train” as a girl of about eleven, playing a guitar strung for a right-handed player upside down, left-handed, and inventing her own way to make it work. Then she put music away for forty years. She was in her sixties, keeping house for a family of musicians, when someone finally heard her play.

Listen →

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not
know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

Morris said this in a lecture in 1880, and he meant it as a discipline, not a decorating tip. It is a standard for what you keep — and a higher one for what you make. This week, hold one shelf of your house to it.

The Met’s essay on Dürer — who took printmaking, a craftsman’s trade, and made it carry as much thought as any painting.

Read the essay →

That is the whole letter. Next Monday, another.

The Daily · San Diego Institute of Technology