rainbow connection

January 21, 2025

No matter how many rainbows we see, they never cease to be amazing. The urge to turn to whoever’s next to us, even the stranger on the bus, and share in the fleeting wonder of a sky awash with red and green, blue and orange, yellow and violet, is uncontrollable. Natural phenomenas kindle our sense of wonder and remind us of our humble place in the world. Volcanic eruptions, natural light shows, ice circles; very often, it’s the communality of the experience that is as affecting as the sight itself. Back in April, millions of people witnessed the ethereal spectacle of a total solar eclipse as it swept across North America. As I walked home from my studio that day, I felt a surreal kinship with all the many people gathering in clusters under the darkening sky. There’s nothing like a natural phenomena to bring a city to standstill and to turn our attention to the sky, to each other, and to ourselves. Even ones as everyday as sunsets feel like an invitation from the universe to pause and pay attention. It was in this spirit that I joined the worldwide group meditation yesterday in honour of filmmaker, David Lynch’s legacy and 79th birthday. “Let us come together, wherever we are, to honor his legacy by spreading peace and love across the world,” wrote his children in a tribute on social media. “Please take this time to meditate, reflect, and send positivity into the universe.” I suck at meditating. And I’ve not watched any Lynch films. But he seemed like a celestial guy. And God knows the world could use a huge embrace right now. And I love the feeling of connectivity that emerges through communal experience. So I rolled out my mat, settled into lotus pose and for a few minutes turned my face towards the sun. A globe-wide mediation, much like the two minutes of silence observed on Remembrance Day, can encourage emotions not so dissimilar to ones we feel when we see a rainbow or a sunset. Gratitude. Awe. Hope. Humility. Connectivity. Even if there’s no one sitting beside you, you know that someone, somewhere is sharing in this moment, too.

tea time

January 13, 2025

One of the first things I purchased when I came to Canada was a glass Bodum teapot. I loved watching the water turn from translucent to a glimmering green. Like most Brits, I grew up drinking tea; always sugary and with lots of milk. At my Dad’s house we drank loose leaf Earl Grey poured through silver strainers into porcelain Wedgewood cups. At my Mum’s house, we dipped Digestives into mismatched mugs of boiling hot Tetley’s. My parents chose to live in very different worlds. Tea tasted wonderful in both. Once I settled in Toronto, I used to walk up to Summerhill to buy loose leaf Ceylon, Assam and Rooibos from the lovely Marisha at House of Tea. And when I started making friends I invited them over for a cuppa. My neighbour, Alison would often pop in with oat biscuits to dunk in the lemon ginger tea we both liked. There are few things more comforting then sharing a pot of tea with a friend. As my children got older and life got busier, teatime lost its sense of ritual. My Bodum teapot cracked and I stopped buying loose leaf teas. A few weeks ago, a friend popped in for an impromptu visit and all I had to offer her was a sad old chamomile tea bag. I didn’t even have decent honey to tart it up with. What kind of an Anglo-Greek has no tea and honey in the pantry? And then rather wonderfully a handmade, red clay teapot appeared under the tree from my husband this Christmas morning. With at least six or seven parts that all have to work together, the teapot poses all kinds of challenges for a potter. This one –– humble and refined –– is among the nicest I’ve ever seen. I’ve since stocked up on a variety of teas (from red rose to a fancy darjeeling) and teatime is starting to feel ceremeonious again. Of course, a pot of tea tastes best when shared so I hope you’ll visit soon. And bring biscuits.

vessel of joy

December 7, 2024

I’m drawn to ceramics that have a sense of humour, and Kelly Jessiman’s classic Hellenic shapes are brimming with it. It’s her handles –– wonky, lopsided, elongated –– that bring the whimsy. Her surface decoration has a painterly quality, as though each vessel is a canvas. It was a dear artist friend that first introduced me to Jessiman’s work. A friend who brings great humour to her own work. All the eccentricity, colour and contradiction that make a vessel (person) interesting are present in these vases. Jessiman fires her work in a shed in her garden, which is the dream.

pieces of a puzzle

December 6, 2024

Every time my Mum visits from England she leaves something behind. Sometimes it’s her scent, woven in to a cushion or a tea towel. Other times it’s a drain snake for the build-up of hair in our bathroom sinks. This time, she left us a 1000-piece puzzle strewn loosely all over the kitchen table. It’s a vibrant collage of Mediterranean windows, several of which she assembled while we put the world to rights over tea and toast. One anxious morning last week, I found real calm and focus in the tiny terracotta pots that lined the sills of one of the many windows. My son organizes the pieces while he eats his cereal in the morning and my youngest daughter treats the puzzle like a late night meditation. Every day, one of us sits down to add something. I just love that she’s still here, scattered all over our kitchen table, yellow bunting, green shutters, geraniums in every shade of pink.

oh, Christmas Tree

December 3, 2024

It wasn’t until a few years ago when a neighbour’s daughter watched me bring a giant conifer into the living room that it dawned on me what a strange tradition it is. “There’s a tree next to your couch,” said the little girl. Her family is Jewish and this was her first time decorating a Christmas tree. In recent years, I’ve suggested alternatives to my family –– amaryllis in clay pots, a plug-in olive tree, or how about some twinkly branches? –– all met with varying levels of conniption. The year I doused a three-foot Balsam Fir in lights will forever be the year Mama Stole Christmas. I get it. Had my Mum proposed juniper berry branches in slender glass vases as an alternative to the plump, jolly green confection I was used to, I would have probably lobbed a mince pie at the wall. Christmas overwhelms me. It overwhelms most of us. The lights, the music, the excess. The cloudburst of needles. The heightened expectations. It is a lot. Bringing a ten-foot tree into a skinny Victorian and stationing it next to your couch for a month, is a lot. But we do it because we know that our children love the tradition. And because we loved it when we were young. And because, despite the bickering and breaking of baubles and untangling of wires and NEEDLES EVERYWHERE –– not to mention the sheer bizarreness of it all –– a tree covered in lights and sparkle really is a sight to behold.

clay

November 22, 2024

One of the things I love about clay is that it has so many states. And that each state corresponds (in my mind, at least) with the human cycle. Clay begins soft and malleable, and full of possibility. It’s in this pliable state that it remembers everything. As it dries, it morphs into its most delicate state, dusty, fragile and as breakable as brittle bones. In the kiln the clay vitrifies and is no longer as porous but still can’t hold water. The second firing –– where glaze is applied –– completes the cycle. It’s here that the vessel is as strong as it’s ever going to be. I’m always amazed by how much a ceramic vessel can withstand. After all, our museums are filled with clay pots that have been around for millennia.

ear and now

November 16, 2024

Three gold hoops, two diamond bars and a lightning bolt of emeralds is what women –– mostly in their mid 20s and 30s –– have on their ears these days. The craze for the curated ear shows no sign of waning with every part of the ear –– helix, conch, snug, rook –– getting glitzed. It’s one of few trends I’m into. I like the look of a fully stacked hand and I like the look of a fully stacked ear. If you’re lucky, your jewellery tells the story of your life. Selma Hayek said that. I wear a single stud in my right ear as an ode to my love of asymmetry. There’s no symmetry in nature. I’ve worn it for years, and I’ve lost it and found it a dozen times. I do like a stacked lobe, though. Add a helix huggie and a poppy seed sized diamond in the rook and you’ve got a veritable buffet of bling. Maybe next time around.

aquatic arts

October 17, 2024

One of my favourite pastimes is watching the swimmers from the bleachers at UofT’s Olympic sized pool. It’s like being at the theatre. Better yet, The Royal Ballet. There’s always that one swimmer that stands out, that moves with the grace of a swan. It’s the repetition that I find so mesmerizing. And the speed. And the effortlessness, as though water is her natural habitat. It’s when two swimmers move in tandem, like a choreographed dance that I am most amazed. Stroke on stroke, breath on breath; two perfectly synced flip turns. I leave feeling a small bit awestruck by what the human body can do.

eyes wide open

October 15, 2024

When you’re a walker you get to know your routes like they’re your friends. There’s the one with the massive pre-historic rocks. And the one with immaculate lawns and a mid-century modern bench. There’s the one where the wild flowers grow. The one where the old, aproned lady stares out from her window. And the one with ever changing graffiti. I know these routes, and I know them well. I pay attention to what they have to show me. A sinuous crack in the pavement; bikes chained to wrought iron; a choir of anemones in full bloom. It’s the walker’s eye. Trained to pay attention. William Eggleston has devoted his life’s work to shooting everyday street scenes and to finding beauty in the mundane. “Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly,” wrote the New York Times in 1976 after Eggleston’s first big exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Today, he’s widely considered the grandfather of street photography. His quiet, ordinary Kansas streets, shot in the late 70s and 80s, are not unlike the ones we walk today. Concrete, brick, trees and wire.

weird world

October 1, 2024

Maryam Riazi’s sculptural vessels looks like weird little creatures, monsters even. Imagine planters with spikes like dead man’s fingers. Or a six legged bowl. I see beaks and tails and protruding bellies. I like how pops of colour — yellow, turquoise, dusty rose –– weave their way into an otherwise earthy palette. Riazi grew up in the city of Shiraz surrounded by lush, verdant gardens filled with orange trees and blossoming flowers. Nature is a constant source of inspiration. Her work is beautiful and weird and otherworldly.

La Parachute

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