In a contest between polka dots and stripes, I’d choose the latter. As teenagers, my best friend, Stephanie and I had amassed so many stripe-y t-shirts (many of them matching) we could have run a shop on the green outside our school. Stripes for Sale! Two for a tenner! Anytime I see a stripe, I get excited. These striped cups, coasters, dishes and bowls from ceramic artist, Amy Kraus are terrifically cool. A background in graphic design informs her approach to surface decoration. “Picking a simple pattern like stripes is great because it’s simple, and I can’t get overwhelmed by the possibilities of different patterns and graphics,” she says. There’s something about the stripe that’s bold, fresh and classic. Hello, Audrey sur plage! “The only rules are that I have to use stripes, and there has to be two colours in the piece,” adds Kraus. “Within that framework, I am able to explore different colour combinations and variations of stripe patterns, and I am pushed to see what colours I can make work together. The best results usually come from combinations I wasn’t expecting to work well.”