.png)
As summer approaches, we’re wrapping up with a few final recommendations — reads, reflections, and resources that stuck with us this season:
Sune revisits Anne Lamott’s essay on blossoming in difficult times. Mary shares Studio Playground, a magazine celebrating creative processes. Harmen recommends a book by anthropologist and runner Michael Crawley. Lea turns to It’s Nice That, a source for articles, ideas, and inspiration from across the creative industries.
We’ll be signing off for a short break in weeks 29 and 30 – hoping these recommendations spark something for you while you’re lying in the sun.
To the Limit
Michael Crawley
Harmen says: “Endurance as both an embodied as well as a deeply cultural experience, anthropologist and runner Michael Crawler (2022 Margaret Mead Award winner) captures it so vividly. The book describes different forms of long-form running (and walking, and dancing…) from around the world and throughout history, through his own experience running in Mexico and Nepal. Long distances, not as a goal, but as social, cultural, and spiritual experiences, but always as a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other journey. This book is very immersive and flows nicely. In fact, I did not read this at all; I’ve been listening to it—30 minutes at a time, during morning runs.”
It’s Nice That
Website
Lea says, “It’s Nice That is a great source for articles, essays, and all the news from the creative sector. Whether it's product launches, perspectives on working creatively, or artist portraits, this site is packed with cool creators and inspiration.”
Studio Playground
Magazine
Mary says: “While travelling in Lisbon last year, I stumbled upon the magazine ‘Studio Playground’ at a café and was drawn to its colourful cover. As I read through its pages, I felt an electrifying sense of inspiration wash over me. The magazine is about exploring, experimenting with, and expressing creativity and art through various formats such as writing, conceptual design of spaces, the memory-driven and sensorial process of cooking or making perfume, and much more. As a creative myself, I enjoy entering the playground and indulging in the contributions, personal essays, and interviews from curious and creative people who share their stories, research, design processes, and ways of being and working. I just collected the third issue and cannot wait to turn the pages!”
Call me an optimist, but I sense an American Spring
Anne Lamott, The Washington Post
Sune says: “I have found both beauty and joy in this essay, written by the author Anne Lamott, many times since I read it back in March. It’s, on the one hand, a bit too late to share now, as it centres on what happens in springtime, when the world around us is unfurling and blossoming. She asks us all to blossom too, even when we are surrounded by circumstances and events that could make us decide not to. But on the other hand, it’s still relevant now that we approach summer. If we haven’t blossomed yet, maybe some quiet time with family, friends, and loved ones can get us going. Lamott writes beautifully about hope, the beauty in caring for other people, and looking for those quiet signs of something new unfolding. ‘Another world is not only possible; she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.’”
.png)