I’m not an artist or designer but I’ve worked on specialist antiques-related newspapers and magazines and known some excellent graphic designers. As I’ve visited many antiques fairs (shows), exhibitions and galleries, I have been exposed to good and bad art and think I know the difference – maybe!

On Squidoo, I’ve written about some great artists and designers like Charles Rennie Macintosh, William Morris, and Susie Cooper and I couldn’t find a group for designers and design. This is why I decided to start the Squidoo Art and Design Group.

I wanted to bring together excellent lenses and I am quite strict about which ones are accepted for the group. I’d rather have fewer members but a high standard. Currently, there are 110 lenses and I’ve probably rejected three times that number.

I spell out categorically the criteria for acceptance but it is amazing how many people either don’t bother to read them or ignore them. If they don’t meet those criteria, I don’t accept them so people are wasting their own time as well as mine.

Here are three of my favourites. Unique Chess Sets by the Frankster shows some amazing chess pieces. I particularly like the set where one side is made up of a variety of cats and the other of dogs – much more interesting than black versus white. I also like Trollbead History Since 1976. I’d never even heard of trollbeads before I saw this lens and now I’m consumed by an urge to have some of my own. The last one of my three is How to Make a Wooden Canvas. This is a great step by step guide illustrated with many good photographs. Even I think I could make one after reading this. I also love the pictures of the painted wooden panels at the end. Not only does the lensmaster, Buffalokid, have the most magnificent moustache and is a good craftsman, he’s a gifted artist too.

These are just three of the great lens in the Art and Design Group. I hope you’ll visit and see some of the others.