misanthrope?

i had never been a phone person.

it's always awkward to call; i imagine too much.
"well, it might not be good time, since it's still work hour; it's still right after work so this person might be tired; becoming close to dinner time, must be cooking; oh, dinner time; too late; bed time."

then, i never call.

so i never needed to have a land line unless it's needed for internet connection.

in 2005, though, i finally bought a phone for the land line to have a regular phone conversation with my family. with my first real full-time job, i thought it's such a "proper thing" to do: to call my family on my bill regularly.

and i called my parents in japan regularly. i never thought it's that great to have a continuing conversation with them at this age. i didn't notice till i have it.

and in 2006 to 2007, somehow i had regular phone conversations with one of my ex-boyfriends with whom i had had the longest relationship of 6 years but didn't have any communication at all for 5 years after the breakup (i later analyzed this event as; we were both in life crisis). when we noticed that these conversations were not helping us at all, we quit. the conversations with him were always wonderful and awful. we were still kinda in love with each other in stupid childish way after 5 years of absence in the real life, and for that very reason, the series of phone calls ended up making us to hate each other.

now, come to think of it, this phone was just for these cross-pacific ocean-phone calls.
i loved to have the land line around that time, since it had a stronger sense of "being connected" with the actual line on the phone. (a childish fallacy.)

it is now at the thrift store in alpine. i hope somebody will get connected with whom he/she really wants to.

colorists

bottles of color pigment. i cannot recall who gave these to me; it was either monica or claudia. both of them were here for the artist in residency program.

when artists leave, they tend to give me leftover studio supplies since they find out that i make "stuff" myself by the time they leave.

these pigments came from portland (so the label says), although claudia and monica were both from germany.

funny.

i somehow had a strong urge to send these back to portland, but couldn't think of any visual artists to whom i can send these... i don't know many people in portland.

so, these ended up being sent to thrift store in marfa, tx. will somebody pick these up and make something?

a cup of break

this coffee filter is made with cotton, and reusable for (i guess) forever.

it's such a beautiful coffee filter. it's from japanese company, and all the text on the back (how to use, how to wash, & how to make the best-tasting drip coffee) are in japanese. so i decided to send this to my dear sister in tokyo, who is super busy for work too much.

a japanese man who i happened to meet in fort worth 3 years ago gave me this coffee filter; his father was a famous coffee business entrepreneur in japan, and this coffee filter was one of his best selling item of the company.

making a great cup of coffee actually requires so much attention. my sister taught me how when i was in college.

like...

water should be "boiling" hot, pour some hot water through the paper filter before you put grounded coffee beans in the filter, you should keep the stream of hot water really skinny when you pour water into the coffee filter, keep the kettle high above the coffee filter, watch the thickness of the form the water stream makes in the coffee filter, etc, etc....

it's almost like science experiment.

although i cannot make a coffee for her since we are so apart in distance, i know she truly deserves the best coffee break.

a buddy

this bag was from marfa national bank's 100th year celebration. it came to the office as a gift from the bank, and nobody was taking it. i wondered why.

sure, i would use it.

since i didn't have a proper medium-size travel bag, it turned out to be such a great company for my 1-week-long trips.

i went to dallas/fort worth with this many times.
i went to hawaii with this (and the bottom of this bag got damaged a bit over the trip, on hawaiian air).
i went to new york with this twice (and it got damaged further).

it turned out to be such a great company to be with when being away from marfa; it has a label that said "marfa national bank," and it always suggested where i came from and where i go back to when i am at different places.

like a loadstar.

but now, i'm tossing this.
i must be smart enough to find my way back by myself, by now.

a tiny company

this was sitting on the windowsill on my kitchen for a long time. probably about 3 or 4 years, since my sister gave it to me.

this little plastic doll came with snack that my sister bought at a store; obviously it was popular then to buy such snacks to collect these mini dolls, and my sister was into it. i remember that she told me that she had been collecting different ones of this series, but this doll is the 2nd of the same design (obviously they dolls have different outfit or hair or something). that was the reason why she wanted to give this to me.

it's such a silly thing, but i thought it would be funny thing to have in the kitchen, and traveled it with me back to the states.

this is about 2 or 3 inches tall with big eyes. though she doesn't look exactly like my friend, courtney, i am sure many of my friends who know courtney would agree; yes, it's her.

so this is in mail to meet and join courtney.

into into into

wiping hands.
as we finish something.
as we settle down our feelings, calming ourselves down.
as we get our hands ready for something new and fresh.

these are japanese traditional towels called "tenugui," which means "wiping hands."

my mother gave 6 tenuguis to me one year when i was back in japan.
i loved the traditional japanese stencil design, but i could never found a way to use these fabrics.

one summer, when i was window-shopping with somebody i was really attracted to, in front of some beautiful scarves at the store, he said that it would be cool to make a scarf from tenugui.

an inspiration.

i made a scarf out of 2 tenuguis, and it became a birthday present for cecilia.