protectors

lizard.
i love them.

they are such odd but beautiful creature. the eyes, the move, the texture of its body.

we call them "yamori" in japanese.
the pronunciation of "yamori" could be interpreted as "house protector, somebody who protects the home," and that's what we call them.

they protect home.
from whatever bad, sad, or negative.

so, i gave these to jd, who was going through some renovation of her house. whoever having any hard time with the house needs to have extra yamoris.

good luck for her home.

fighters

a mexican artist gave me a packet of goodies.

a cd of his music (he was a performance/ sound artist), a toy with a bell to make noise, a rubber made horse, and this.

two mexican wrestlers. not tackling, not fighting, but being bound together with the yellow cape.

they are fighters, but they are not fighting with each other. they face to the opposite direction when they stand since how they are connected determines which way they face.
it makes me think that they fight to protect something between their backs.

i liked the absurdity of this object.

one of my interns was having a birthday, so this became a b-day gift to her. thought to give her something from mexico, and this one turned out to be the one.

the sound of living

i so loved this kettle. the chantal's harmonica whistle kettle.

it whistles so great. i loved it too much, so this one is actually the 3rd chantal kettle that i owned.
because.

i kept of burning them.

though it whistles so wonderfully, i couldn't take a good care, oftentimes didn't notice that all the water evaporated, and kept on ruining them. and, this is the 3rd. i kept on buying the exactly same kettle since i love it so much.

however, 3 is the number for closing; the japanese say. "even buddha accepts the same mistakes up to only 3 times."

so when i burned this 3rd harmonica kettle, i knew that was it.
i don't deserve such a beautiful sound.
i have to bend and get a electric kettle (sadly).

and i did.

so, i dropped it off at the marfa thrift. its bottom has been melted and deformed, but it still works and even still whistles.

chaotic

lines lines lines.

i don't even know where these came from and/or what these are for. i'm confused.

the confusion resembles the one in my head.

i am sure they had specific functions; sorry, i don't remember. you guys were never that special in my life, obviously.

these are all at the thrift store in alpine, for anybody who needs these.

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.