Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. This week, as part of our floral-themed Summer Entertaining issue, we’ve turned it into a gift guide, with recommendations on what to bring your hosts this season. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@nytimes.com. FLORAL DISPLAY Ceramics With Hand-Painted Blossoms
Rebecca Glick is always on the hunt for beautiful objects that draw her in. A couple of years ago, she ramped up her efforts to make some of her own, turning her hobby of working with clay into a full-time pursuit. “It feels exciting to be on the creating side, as opposed to the consuming side,” says Glick, a former elementary-school teacher who officially launched her namesake line in 2025. Her wares include trinket bowls and trays, mugs, platters and vases, all made of porcelain and painted with multicolored flowers. She crafts them at her studio space at the Brooklyn nonprofit Powerhouse Arts. First, Glick throws or forms the clay by hand, then paints the florals — tulips, peonies, poppies — with underglazes, sometimes spending a full day on this step for a single piece, and eventually applies a gold luster. To the designer, the allover patterns have a fabric-like quality that reminds her of some of the clothing she wore as a teenager in the 1980s. The dishes also stand apart from the heavier, earthier ceramics that have recently dominated the market. “This is a chance to reach those who prefer something a little more delicate, a little more feminine,” says Glick. “I think of them as jewelry for the home.” No doubt they’d add sparkle to any table. FOLD STANDARD Napkins Worthy of a Garden Party
With good-quality cloth and an eye-catching design, a set of floral napkins can be a gift that hits the sweet spot between useful and decorative. In Gloucestershire, England, Daylesford Organic designs white-and-green linen napkins with tactile edges in the distinctive shape of geranium leaves. “Unlike most flowers, the fragrance of geraniums comes from the leaves rather than the blooms,” says the line’s founder, Carole Bamford. The Brooklyn-based brand Soil to Studio manufactures its block-printed napkins in India, near Jaipur — one lime-and-mauve four-pack is meant to evoke the willow leaves and almond blossoms of the Kashmir Valley. The linens from Suzette à Table, based in France, are upcycled from dead-stock cotton, meaning every batch is a limited edition. Options include plum-colored napkins printed with belladonna fig flowers and a dark green set with delicate, unopened dandelions that look more like rosebuds. Gohar World’s handmade napkins, sold by the pair, are stitched in Cairo with unexpected Mediterranean flowers: onion, fennel, caper and mimosa. The British brand Bertioli makes napkins depicting another less obvious blossom: the bean flower, a favorite of the illustrator and owner, Caryn Hibbert. “How they curl and climb upward is just so delightful,” she says. SUMMER SPRITZ New Scents That Bring Flowers Indoors
While a bouquet is always a great way to thank a host, it’s ultimately a fleeting gesture. For a longer-lasting token of appreciation, consider a different kind of botanical offering like Nosedive’s new Desert Wood room mist, which is hand-poured in small batches in Minnesota and contains an earthy blend of sage, lavender and wildflowers. The Brooklyn-based, family-run hair-and-body care line Sisters recently partnered with the chef Julia Sherman on a hand wash that combines mimosa flower with notes of sweet Sichuan peppercorn and shiso. Last month, Le Labo introduced its signature scent Santal 33 as a hand lotion, pairing iris and violet with cardamom and the woody warmth of Australian sandalwood. This spring, Liberty Beauty, the fragrance line from the English department store, expanded its hand cream collection with Liberty Maze, scented with jasmine and honeysuckle. For a friend who’s always trying new perfumes, consider Flower Glyph, the latest launch from the California-based fragrance brand Liis, which brings together jasmine, honeysuckle and blueberry. ELEVATED BOUQUETS Vases for Ikebana Arrangements
Ikebana, also known as kado — Japanese for “the way of flowers” — is thought to have evolved from sixth-century Buddhist temple offerings in Japan, where priests arranged flowers as a form of devotion. Today’s ceramic artists are designing vessels for the minimalist style, in which every stem is carefully placed to create balance, movement and negative space. Mano Mani, a brand based in Bayonne, France, creates ikebana vases in an array of organic shapes and natural glazes, while the Australian pottery shop Kura Studio offers one in a pebble-inspired shape that evokes rock pools at low tide. Both pieces come with built-in notches to hold stems in place, eliminating the need for a kenzan — the spiked metal flower frog traditionally used in ikebana. The Hamburg-based ceramist Heike Mende crafts made-to-order pieces with scalloped rims that she finishes with a light pink glaze, while in Barcelona, the Ukrainian-born ceramic artist Diana Beklemesheva hand-shapes expressive forms finished in either a deep blue-green glaze inspired by Mediterranean waters or a soft white pearl. The Atlanta-based ceramic studio Utility Objects sells a multifunctional stoneware pedestal bowl complete with a removable ceramic flower frog, allowing it to double as a serving bowl fit for summer hosting. PARTY HATS Paper Crowns You’ll Want to Keep
Channel Scandinavian midsummer by bringing a set of floral paper crowns to your next warm-weather gathering. The New York-based artist Happy Menocal, known for her whimsical stationery and custom emblems, makes a laurel wreath-inspired crown using leftover paper from her studio that her mother hand-paints with gold-and-white details. In England, flimsy paper coronets are commonly worn at Christmas dinners, but Cambridge Imprints’ sturdier style works just as well at summer soirees with its vibrant, vegetal patterns printed by lithographers in London. The artist Harriet Homfray, also based in London, is one of only a handful of artisans who still marble paper, a craft that is considered endangered in the United Kingdom. Her crowns are one of a kind and can be made in particular colorways upon request. And East End Press’s versions are screen printed with festive motifs — a daisylike burst of yellow, a repeating oblong leaf — on thick recycled paper by artisans in Jaipur. FROM T’S INSTAGRAM The Artist Painting Pastoral Landscapes in Technicolor
For the past six years, the artist Uman has worked out of a nearly 8,000-square-foot former storefront in Albany, N.Y. Having traded Manhattan for the type of nature that shaped her childhood in Mogadishu, Somalia, she lives in a small town an hour away from Albany, on a farm where there’s room for her animals, which include chickens, cats and dogs. She often references rural life in her abstracted and gridlike landscapes. In her large-scale painting “Sumac Tree in Roseboom” (2022-23), which is currently on view in a survey exhibition of her work at Bard College’s Hessel Museum, a black tree limb reaches across the center of the canvas, its branches ending in ruby red squashy bubbles that are surrounded by seemingly thousands of small, multicolored dots. In her studio, those signature dots, swirls, triangles and diamonds spill, here and there, from the canvases and onto the walls, rolling chairs and doorknobs. Ahead of her show, Uman answered T’s Artist’s Questionnaire, discussing the weirdest objects in her work space, her favorite artworks and how she starts a new piece. Click here to read the full conversation and follow us on Instagram.
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