I came across the whimsical world of Laura Bird today –– playful ceramic forms, intricately illustrated in marvelous colours –– and I felt inspired. All her pieces are hand-built using slabs and coils, and her designs have a Matisse like quality. Have a look around, her plates, vases, and bowls are a delight.

I’m drawn to water, towns on a lake, a river or an ocean. I grew up ten minutes from the Thames, and I’ve walked that river bank over a million times. As a child, I spent many months on a boat, very often anchored in a tiny bay in the middle of the Aegean. In Toronto, I spend very little time at the waterfront, or on Toronto’s beaches, but just knowing that the lake is there, and that it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, presents possibility to me. Once in a while, my friend, Alison sends me photos from her beach home near Lunenberg in Nova Scotia. The moody skies and temperamental waters are always so beautiful to see. One day, I too would like to live in a place where I can jump in the water seconds from my house. I’d like to hear the water’s mood swings, its temper and its calm, as I eat my toast in the morning. Just thinking about it brings me joy.

I came across the work of artist, Waichi Tsutuka today, and I was taken by his oil and ink paintings. I’m drawn to the abstract shapes, and the inky blue hues in his works. I find them meditative. Waichi died in his studio in Japan when the Great Hanshin earthquake hit. This painting, titled “Being Human,” was what first drew me in.

My first flat was a tiny attic apartment that I rented in an old palazzo in a quiet quarter of Florence. It came furnished with a vintage wooden dining table and chairs, and a blue Ikea fold up sofa. My view was terracotta rooftops. There was a hole in the wall that sold shawarma in the alley below me, and a few minutes down the road stood the beautiful Santa Croce cathedral. We’d gather at my tiny flat, five or six students from our language school, and drink wine that smelled like vinegar, and play gin rummy for hours and hours. Sometimes, one of us would whip up an arrabiata in the galley kitchen, and we’d all take turns to wash up. Within a week of moving in, my little flat was everyone’s flat. To this day, I think of that place. My first home away from home. My first glimpse of independence. Where lifelong friendships began. Where we laughed, and shared stories and wished it could all last forever.

I’ve tried to throw clay on the wheel once in my life, and the experience was not so dissimilar to driving a manual car on the roundabouts of London. In both instances, there were far too many things to pay attention to and I felt quite overwhelmed. But I feel that the time has come to attempt at least one wheel again, and I choose the pottery wheel over the steering kind. It’s the practice, practice practice bit that turns me off, and turns most people off when they realize how much harder it is than it looks. But I think it’s a worthy challenge, and one that will open up possibilities for me, and perhaps even prove meditative if I can get the hang of it. It’s what both overwhelms and excites me about pottery, and life, how very much there is to learn.