I met a lady in the pool bleachers yesterday with a fried egg tattooed to her upper arm. It was a stick and poke with tiny lines to emphasize the wrinkles in the egg white. Turns out, she really likes fried eggs and that was reason enough to get one tattooed to her body. “All my friends with tattoos told me not to over think it, and that if I searched for something meaningful, I’d never get one.” Teen tattoos are brilliant (most of the time) because of this very reason. You likely didn’t think about it too much. A Sanskrit symbol, a shooting star, your grandmother’s middle name. If you’ve reached middle age with no tattoo, anything you get will likely be loaded with meaning. At least, you’ll want it to be. It’s why I don’t have one. Because I’ve thought about it too much. Which is why I loved Joyce’s tattoo. “There’s no significance, it was just for fun.” Chances are, she’ll love it for as long as she loves fried eggs. Forever. (arrow through the heart)

It’s been a long time since I looked through a kaleidoscope, but Philip Taaffe’s paintings have a similar effect on the eye. With a rich pictorial language infused with symbols and motifs drawn from cultures all over the world, Taaffe’s multi media paintings are a visual feast. Think psychedelic patterns, high wattage colours, and dynamic compositions. “I want a very generous experience [for the viewer of my work]. I want to give the viewer a lot and I want the viewer to feel transported and to feel that I am delivering something from this journey I’ve been on. I want them to feel that,” he says. Here, the lizards look like they’re dancing on a marble effect dance floor and this floral motif (below) looks like a choir of tulips, dahlias and dandelions. His paintings definitely take us somewhere else; to India, to Japan, to the moon.

Ann-Mari Forsberg‘s beautiful tapestries are a mix of wool and linen in colours as joyful as the flowers that inspired her. There is a looseness to her patterns, and a sense of whimsy that I am very much drawn to. I know we’re two seasons away from crocus season, but it’s this tapestry that really caught my eye. It’s such a simple and bold design; as eye catching today, as it would have been in 1945.

The potted plants in her Seoul apartment were the inspiration for Taehyoung Jeon‘s most recent body of work. “One of my joys is to look at my plants and study their growth and changes everyday,” she says. It’s always so exciting to see what happens when inspiration and imagination meet. Some plants are recognizable, while others spring entirely from Jeon’s imagination. Organic shapes and exaggerated proportions paired with playful colour combinations and decorative details make each plant so pleasing to the eye. I see antique gramophones and mid-century lamps. This one might be my favourite, although it’s just so hard to choose.

There’s a beautiful moment, when summer and autumn first meet, and the dahlias are in full bloom, and the patios are still bustling and the freshness of fall is easing its way in. You feel it in the morning, crisp and bracing. And you feel it in the late afternoons as you walk home and wish you had a sweater. The air suddenly feels cleaner. This is the time for goosebumps on suntanned arms. This is the time for bare feet and wool sweaters. This is the time for insect repellent and cinnamon. It’s fleeting this moment, which makes it all the lovelier. To quote Leandra Medine, “I love summer and hate everything else,” until this moment comes along and I’m reminded that autumn is always worth saying goodbye to summer for.

Every year in mid-September I find myself lying on a chiropractor’s table, eyes filled with tears, wondering why I ignored signals until my body had to sound an alarm. “I had to make you uncomfortable, otherwise you never would have moved.” Thank-you universe, I am now uncomfortable, and I cannot move. Which I understand is the point. It’s not lost on me that the moment my children return to school my body breaks down. And that the moment I have long stretches in the day to roll out clay, I can’t lift a spoon. Pity party over. In my defense, I’ve come along way on the road to self care. The expression, “self care” makes me think of Nair and vanilla scented candles. But, I digress. When life brings you to your knees, or to your back, or to a fetal pose enough times, you realize that some things must change. But you know, middle-aged dog, new tricks, some things are harder to change than others. And as far as I’ve come, I still fall into familiar holes and make mistakes I should know better than to make. When will I learn? Maybe never. Or maybe the fall won’t be as long, and the thump so heavy; maybe I’ll learn to recover better. Here’s hoping. I now have a client that is expecting work I can’t produce, and a list of to-dos that I won’t be able to tick off. It’s funny how pain reduces that list to its very essential items, to the list it likely should have been all along. Maybe the greatest lesson of all is that I have no control, and any illusion that I do is what lands me in the hole to begin with.

I adore Yumi Kimura‘s childlike illustrations, and on heavier days, they are everything one might look for in a lift. Imagine winged horses, snails with giant shells, pigeons in pearls, and a fish wearing a tiny tiara. Kimura’s work is colourful, naif and endearing. Here’s a lama with a squirrel on its back. At least, I think it’s a lama, and I think it’s a squirrel. Have a look at her instagram feed; it may brighten your day, too.

Is it useful? Is it beautiful? I think about William Morris often when I make something out of clay. “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” My intention is to make something, that to someone out there, is both. Beauty is more subjective than function, although possibilities for the latter are endless with a little imagination. I’m always so happy to see a bowl I’ve made making its way into someone’s daily life. Apples, seashells, spools of thread, my pieces are made to be filled with whatever makes you happy. My friend, Tara keeps old issues of the New Yorker in one of my large finned bowls, and my friend, Maryam fills her oval winged platter with Iranian pistachio nuts. In my hands it was one thing, in theirs it became another. When someone asks me what something’s for, I say, “anything you want; a lemon, a parsnip, a handful of golf balls.” Or as my friend and fellow potter, Katherine says, “For your happiness.”