Heck Yes Craft

I'm a big fan of furniture that's well constructed and lets the beauty of the wood shine. And I love music (and drumming on things). If you put furniture and music together, you get the work of Tor Clausen. One part table, one part xylophone, his work is made to be played. It's a great way to introduce children to music, and more fun than a standard wooden bench or table.

Remember making paper snowflakes as a kid? Take that process, add a pinch of geometry, a dollop of scientific method and a heaping spoonful of talent and you get these incredible paper creations by artist/scientist/engineer Matthew Shlian. Some are delicately cut patterns in paper; others are intricately folded sculptural objects. I'm fascinated by the way Shlian's identities as artist and scientist come through in his artworks: his work is "experimental" in that it springs from curiosity rather than a vision of a final product.

If you ask Clyde Wynia about his sculptures, he'll tell you that he didn't make them. Being an amateur paleontologist, he came across these extinct creatures from the Iron Age in the swamps around his house, and discovered that many of them were killed and harvested for their parts. Thankfully he's carefully excavated these creatures and keeps them on display at Jurustic Park.

For the Friday before July Fourth, I can't find anything more fitting than the found-object, folk-art-inspired work of Ramona Otto. The self-taught California artist has made more than 80 American-flag-based pieces. I'm a sucker for familiar forms that reward a closer look. Spend a minute appreciating the surprising intricacy of American Childhood, a cheerful composition of the most prosaic plastic trinkets – Happy Meal toys, action figures, board game pieces, and other castoffs of our consumer culture. Happy Fourth.

Andrew Gilliatt's latest body of work makes me want to scream, in that "I scream for ice cream" kind of way. I don't really scream for ice cream, but never mind that. When I look at his tumblers, cereal bowls, mugs, and platters - elegant, iterative forms, yet each one unique in its imaginative combination of colored slip, glazes, resist patterns, and decals - I'm transported back to the ice cream shop in the town where I grew up, face and hands pressed against the glass case of my monitor, mesmerized by all the sweet options.