“Our lighting is hand-built in Japan from natural materials, including the hand-made paper (washi) of Eriko Horiki, the bent Japanese cedar of Toshiyuki Tani’s Wappa series, the coiled beech wood of the Bunaco Lacquer Ware Company, and the todomatsu pine slats of Takumi Kohgei. The lights are designed by Japanese architects and artisans who strive to create distinctive contemporary designs utilizing traditional materials and production techniques…Typically these lights provide ambient rather than functional lighting, creating that special mood or atmosphere which is best achieved through the use of soft natural materials.” These spectacular Japanese lamps are sold and distributed in North America by Vancouver company Kozai Designs.

I have one of these white heart pendant necklaces, and easily a hundred people have asked me about it. It’s by Toronto jeweller Tosca Teran, whose studio is alternately known as Nanotopia and Nanopod. Teran’s pieces, most of which look like a naturalist’s specimens, are classified according to her own funny hybrid proto-scientific taxonomy, viz.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Earring
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Orthogastropoda
Superorder: Heterobranchia
Order: Opisthobranchia

There’s something about these that distinguishes them from other objects that reference nature – they’re sciencey, but also not. Maybe it’s the rounded edges that give them a sort of mysterious personality. My own doctor noticed my heart pendant one day and mentioned its anatomical correctness. I said “Yes! But doesn’t it have too many blood vessels? What’s this one at the back?” And she said “no, that’s correct, it’s the pulmonary artery.”

The Nanotopia website is here, but the Nanopod Etsy shop seems to be the place to buy items. There are some amazing photos of the jewellery in her Flickr and if you just search for “nanopod” on Flickr you can see photos her students have taken of her very nice teaching studio.

Here are two quite beautiful DIY projects from the 60s, both found in The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. Most of what we found in there was quite kitschy, but these two ideas seemed particularly striking. The instructions are a little minimal, but a pair of fairly handy people could probably figure them out. Caption for the white relief wall treatment above: ”Cover a wall with lattice molding. Between two 1×2s, space as many strips of lath as you need and nail them in place. Cut a diagonal strip at top and a circle in the middle. Nail and cement the lath to the wall, but slightly offset the sections. Paint the entire surface in flat white.”

This lamp is attractive, and with the new LED Christmas light strings, it would be easy to make without threat of burning the rice paper. These lampshades are cheap to buy, but the effect when they’re strung together is more than the sum of its parts. “Paper lampshades come in a multitude of shapes and sizes – here we have a cylinder, an oblate spheroid, and globes in three sizes. This cheap but glamorous installation was made by sewing the shades together with wire wrapped around the wood frames. Illumination is provided by a Christmas tree light string carrying small frosted bulbs of low wattage.”