In 2003, artists Betsy Kopshina Schulz and Pat Welsh, along with a team of volunteers, created a mosaic mural for the wall outside the Del Mar Public Library at 1309 Camino Del Mar. The mixed media mural combines sculpted ceramic elements with rocks and other found objects.

The mosaic’s motifs include local flora and fauna.

The library building resembles a large house, and the intimate scale of the mural elements fits perfectly into this context.

The design continues alongside the stairs leading to the front door.

For more details of this public art project, check out A Design Garden.

We’re honored to be featured on Modern Midwest this week, which gave us a chance to describe the philosophy behind VisuaLingual work. The best part? A product giveaway for a couple of lucky readers!

We’re giving away our Ol Pine Heart Warmer, a bundle of natural fire starter that also smells quite lovely:

We’re also giving away our best-selling 10 Seed Bombs with Slinger, which is a fun and easy way to grow some hardy, colorful wildflowers:

Visit Modern Midwest for details!

Kaliski & Cabay ghost tile spotted in Greenwich Village at 88 University Place, now the home of Scarpina Bar & Grill. I rarely see tile signs with such irregular letters, almost as if someone worked on this without a plan at all.

The latest installment in my ongoing investigation into the vanity license plates of Southwestern Ohio concerns food and beverages. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are looking into what makes a FEAST.

Milk, milk, LEMNADE:

What else does a feast need? Apparently NOT FISH:

But beef? Yes, C BEEF1:

True story: years ago, a friend of mine became a vegetarian but continued to eat bacon because, according to him, the FDA classifies bacon as a fat and not a meat, and he is most certainly a BACN LVR:

A feast also needs GOETTA. In fact, two kinds are best:

I’m a fan of escargot, but I like FROG 2:

Of course we need at least one veggie-friendly option on the menu; I suggest RAVIOLI:

YOLK EZ? I couldn’t agree more — 20 minutes of prep time, and you’ve got yourself a tasty frittata:

Since a feast should include different food groups, we’ll include THE PEA as well:

Who will help us with dessert? I hope PIE CHEF and 2BAKERS are available for a catering gig:

This is the 10th part in an ongoing series. If you just can’t get enough, also check out Part 1: meta expression, Part 2: sports messaging, and possibly adult content, Part 3: God stuff, Part 4: local businesses, Part 5: professions, Part 6: names and self-designations, Part 7: love and marriage, Part 8: places, and Part 9: all creatures great and small.

Cincinnati’s Gorgeous Attempt to Woo Visitors, Circa 1933: some of the glass mosaic murals from the Cincinnati Union Terminal currently live at CVG and will hopefully find a new home soon.

Suburban Blight in Kansas City: just that, in words and pictures.

The New York City Filming Locations of The Warriors: only one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen on the Internet.

City Walk: The Show Is Afoot!: a TV show about walking through cities like LA and NYC; sounds pretty cool.

Warby Parker Gets All Coney Island with New Collection of Specs: this video is a hypnotic bunch of hipster douchebaggery, set on the Coney Island boardwalk.

Animal Commuters: Strangest Creatures Found on Public Transit around the World: bizarre but kind of awesome.

Awesome architecture, awesome ghost sign… The Acme Farm Supply building is located on the corner of Broadway and 1st Ave. South in downtown Nashville.

Edward Leedskalnin was born in Riga, Latvia and, at 26, became engaged to 16-year old Agnes Scuffs. She ditched him the day before their wedding. He eventually landed in Homestead just outside of Miami, where he spent the rest of his life building Coral Castle as testimony of his love for his “sweet sixteen.”

Harvesting coral from his property, Ed spent 28 years building this compound, until his death in 1951. He was apparently only 5 feet tall, weighing 100 lbs. Intensely private, he did much of the work in the middle of the night, unseen by neighbors and, to this day, no one understands how he was able to carve and move tons of coral using only the simplest of hand tools.

This is the Throne Room, from where Ed envisioned that he and Agnes could one day survey the property. Despite several invitations, she never visited the site:

Moon Fountain is carved from 3 gigantic pieces of coral, and the pond is lined with cement, because coral is very porous:

This element, situated atop the North Wall, is called the Crown:

The tower houses Ed’s workshop and modest living quarters:

The view from Ed’s bedroom; on the right is a 28-ton obelisk, which is larger than the great upright at Stonehenge:

Lovely bougainvillea grows throughout the property, perfectly complementing the coral:

Ed imagined that the Governor, Senators and Representatives would sit around the massive Florida Table and make decisions about matters of the state:

Weighing approximately 30 tons and situated just outside the compound walls, the Polaris Telescope is perfectly focused on the North Star:

The Nine Ton Gate is Ed’s engineering pièce de résistance — it’s a perfectly balanced chunk of coral that fits within a 1/4 inch of its walls and can be turned with no effort whatsoever:

The cavernous gift shop features this:

Yesss! The über poseur himself [who is performing in Cincinnati Friday night, BTdubs] wrote “Sweet Sixteen” about Ed and Agnes, and the video was apparently shot on location. I’m not really a Billy Idol fan, but the song’s not half bad. This is the only official-looking video I’ve been able to find, but there’s must be another one that’s more Coral Castle-oriented:

You might figure that admission is no longer 10 cents. In fact, it’s $15!!! Not to get overly picky but, when it comes to the esoteric world of Dementia Concretia, the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, AL is $7, while the Hartman Rock Garden in Springfield, OH is free.

Just to harp on the admission price a bit more, as we paid, the cashier encouraged us to join the guided tour that had just started. Which was in Spanish! Instead, we wandered around on our own, making this probably the most expensive 20 minutes I’ve ever experienced. Cool place, but WTF.

This seems to be turning into a regular feature, as there’s been no shortage of WTFuckery lately. The Rensler’s tile downtown is the latest victim in an ongoing conspiracy against Cincinnati ghost signage [see also this and this].

Above was the scene on Saturday around noon. A couple of hours later I naturally assumed that the whole entryway was being retiled:

Later on Saturday, the guy was gone, so I thought this crazy trifecta was the finished product:

But, no, that would have been too bizarre. This is the eventual outcome:

Granted, as you can see in my photo from almost 5 years ago, the entryway was cracked and sagging, so this was probably long overdue. Still, a bummer:

Over the past few years, we’ve produced numerous custom projects [you can see a few examples here], but our latest is definitely one of my favorites: it’s a promotion for the Midwest division of CSX and, for once, it involves more than just our seed bombs.

We designed and screenprinted 2,000 “thank you” cards for customers [above] and employees [below], which are being sent out along with seed bombs filled with Midwestern wildflowers.

In terms of design, I had a lot of fun with the chunky logo for this railroad company, and the black ink on rugged chipboard is a departure from our typically bright and clean color palette.

The “thank you” message appears as though it’s being delivered by the box car logo, and the repeating logo pattern on the other side is a subtle reference to a train yard.

Maybe you never realized this about Michael and me, but we are total train geeks, which is why places like Cincinnati Union Terminal and Grand Central Terminal are so dear to our hearts, and also why we love the annual Krohn Conservatory holiday train display.

Springtime Garden Wedding: some love for our personalized seed bomb favors.

Liberty St. “Road Diet” Advances, to Be Bid by Nov. 2014: a plan to eliminate the barrier between the Southern and Northern portions of Over-the-Rhine.

Aggregate Dialect Difference: the Cincinnati dialect is least like NYC, Newark, Jersey City, Boston, or Philly.

The Heidelberg Project: A Resilient Community Rebuilds, Again: the latest on Detroit’s Heidelberg Project after last month’s tragic fire.

Is the End Nearing for Odessa Café and Bar on Avenue A?: the end of an era for a neighborhood icon? Pretty soon I won’t even recognize my hometown.

Fake Shop Fronts Used to Make Towns Seem Neater for G8: in Northern Ireland, The Society of the Simulacrum has popped up.