It’s Elin Frodig‘s handles that I love. The Danish ceramic artist plays with polka dots and stripes, but it’s the handles that really made me smile. Some look like elephant ears, others look like Danish sugar pretzels. They’re deliberately wonky, with proportions that don’t make sense. And that’s why I’m drawn to them. Think functional pottery with a brilliant sense of humour.

The squirrels are driving me mad. Every time I look, they’ve yanked up an Impatiens or left a trail of mud on the porch. I’ve heard that scattering small clumps of hair in your planters scares off the squirrels. Chilli peppers and mint are also used to keep squirrels away. Marigold petals, too. I rather like the idea of the Marigolds; far more pleasing to the eye than a hairball.

Mudpuppy is a small ceramic studio based out of Denver that makes one-of-a-kind mobiles, planters and sculptural objects for the home. Michael McDowell’s aesthetic is warm and whimsical. His moon chimes would look lovely in a nursery and his ceramic flowers could be planted just about anywhere. It’s not easy being a small batch ceramicist. When we see something we love, let’s share it.

Anyone prepping kids for overnight camp knows it’s a weeks long project. Our basement is a sea of bug jackets, life jackets, tennis rackets and camping gear. There’s the practical side to packing; follow the list, and Marie Kondo your way to two tightly packed duffels. And then there’s the emotional side. Always much harder. Will someone comment on her Grandmother’s old comforter? Will she want to shave her armpit fuzz when she sees other girls doing it? What if she gets her period? Does she have enough stamps? And what about him; will he change his underpants? Will he be warm enough with that old blanket? Is a pink sleeping bag an invitation for bullies? Sending a child to camp is an exercise in surrendering control. In that heap of fleece and Gortex and triple layered masks sits every parent’s inner most worries for their child. No wonder parents fret so much about packing; it’s the only thing we can control. Fourteen pairs of underwear, check. One pair of wellies, check. The most important things –– confidence, resilience, courage, kindness, flexibility –– we all know, aren’t packable. And no amount of bandaids or sunscreen will stave of homesickness. So we make a list, check it 42 times, and hope for the best.

“I heard from a swimming coach that how soon children learn to swim depends on how much they trust themselves and the surrounding world,” wrote the Hungarian polyglot, Kató Lomb. In this beautiful film by filmmaker, Luca Werner we meet three teenage boys, two of whom share an innate love of water and swimming. “I remember I used to beg my family to take me to the beach.. It was when I was learning to swim and I wanted to go as far as I could. And my father would shout at me because he was scared. But I never listened to him and kept swimming.” The film, set in Rhodes, is an exquisite homage to the sea, and to the idyllic carefreeness of youth. The third boy, the reluctant diver, says he fears what he can’t see. Anything could be lurking underneath the surface. “It’s hard to find sharks in Greece,” quips his pal.

There’s something endlessly exciting to me about the connection between raw material –– wood, clay, stone, metal –– and the maker that inherits it. In the hands of an artist’s imagination, a lump of wood or a slab of clay has the potential to be anything. Some artists, Betty Woodman for example, took a radical approach to the material, turning clay into exuberant multi media murals. Others, create something that bares more of the markings of the material’s original identity, like Eva Jospin’s cardboard forests. Both are an exquisite homage to their chosen material, innovative, original and arresting. We’re drawn to originality as much as we are to the familiar; Nadia Yaron‘s striking wood sculptures are reminiscent of both Brancusi and the tree stumps that they came from. As long as we can see some spark in the work that sets it aside from someone else’s, as long as we can see the artist in the wood, in the clay, in the shimmer of glass, as long as there’s a connection, then something original has been created.