There’s a rather rancid smell in the air at this time of year, the smell of Ginkgo. Toronto is filled with Ginkgo trees and the females produce large numbers of fruit that lay buried under piles of leaves through the month of November. I once thought I’d stumbled upon vomit in Queen’s Park and was baffled to see an elderly couple scooping it up into bags. Weeks later, when I learned about the Gingko fruit, I realized the couple was foraging for fruit. It’s a beautiful tree the Gingko tree, and oddly, I’ve grown accustomed to the pungent scent of its fruit. These leaves were photographed by the great Irving Penn in 1990.

For the moments when we need reminding of just how tiny we are in this big and beautiful world, here, a woman in the 1950s admires the enormous size of a Sequoia tree. I find this image humbling, inspiring and overwhelming, all at once. It really puts you in your place.

There isn’t a single one of Moira Frith‘s paintings that I don’t love. With a background in  zoology and ecology, nature is a central theme in this young British artist’s work. There’s an elephant with a pomegranate on her back, a dancing cheetah, and snails, ladybugs and grasshoppers all loosely sketched in watercolour, gouache, pencils, oil pastels, ink and crayons. Folk and medieval art are influences, too. “I try not to take my paintings too seriously, so I hope that’s reflected in the work and that they make people smile.”

There’s an irreverence to Nina Godfrey’s ceramics that I very much enjoy. Her lumpy vases and candelabras look like they’re exceptionally fun to make. There’s nothing fastidious or fussy about the work, which I for one, find freeing. My seven-year-old makes vases like Godfrey’s –– playful, joyful and spontaneous –– which in my book is a compliment. It means the work has pure imagination and raw talent pulsating through it.