Brooklyn duo pays homage to childhood pastime, the blanket fort

Brooklyn BookBeat

October 16, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Grackle & Pigeon. Photos by Grackle & Pigeon

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At some point growing up, most of us threw a blanket over two chairs and declared it our clubhouse.

Artistic wife and husband Grackle & Pigeon have taken this timeless idea a step further — or, rather, they’ve taken the imagination we all had as kids and infused it into 25 creative and gorgeously photographed artisanal blanket forts.

“Blanket Fort: Growing Up Is Optional,” which was released on Oct. 2, is a fun, gifty, and absolutely stunning look at a wide range of DIY projects that will inspire readers to envision cozy hideouts in their living rooms, yards, yoga studios and workspaces.

Each project includes a mix of color photographs and charming pen-and ink step-by-step instructional illustrations for making a home within or outside your actual home. Forts like “Bears Love Breakfast” are as simple as a couple of blankets and sticks, for a rustic camping feel, cleverly turning your average tent into a cool and cozy fort. Then there’s “Ground Control,” the David Bowie-themed fort for music lovers, whose moon-like glow will make you want to crawl inside and sing along to “Life on Mars.”

“Om Shanti,” the Yoga fort, is clean and simple, the perfect place to clear your busy mind and namaste from home. And the decadent “Garden Party” is a backyard piece de resistance worthy of a (tiny) wedding reception. Other signature blanket forts include “Fireflies + Fairy Tales,” a twinkly, hammock-based fort for the mystical among us; “RPG OMG,” the retro, throwback slumber party fort for your entire living room; “Office Space,” the fort to transform your home office into a pillow-forward, fluorescent-light-free work nook; and many more.

The book’s front matter outlines the basic frames that are used to create the forts, and the instructional drawings throughout show the forts’ bones, but “Blanket Fort” is more a lifestyle book than a craft book — one which invites people of any income or demographic to look and dream, the perfect gift for a couple moving in together or your best friend from childhood.

Grackle + Pigeon is a wife-and-husband creative team based in Brooklyn. Together, they have worked across print, theater, video and the web to bring artful concepts to fruition. Their work can also be found in the independently published novels “Dahlia Cassandra” and “Concrete Fever.”