樹ノ音工房

this little pottery workshop in hongo turns into a cafe on the whims of the owners, and for 1,800 yen serves up cake and also a beverage of your choice in a hand-made ceramic cup that you get to bring home. though there were a few other designs to choose from, it was love at first sight for me with that little doggy cup. i had a much harder time choosing the cake.

i love the textures of everything there-from the rough touch to the ceramic wares down to the unpolished wooden look of the tables and chairs. it was a simple little place filled with hand-made goodness. i’d sign up to learn pottery with this workshop in a heartbeat if they’d only teach me how to create that rough texture and etch my own illustrations on it. but that’s probably trade secret. dang.

 

sparkle

she asked if i could photograph the accessories that she made and i was more than happy to do it. she’s beautiful, isn’t she? and talented too.

 

一期一会

i finally drew and painted on a cardboard that had been lying around in my apartment for the longest time. and it was only when i finished that i realised i was preparing myself to say goodbye to some JET friends i have grown to love this past 2 years that they have been here. there is so much more i want to say but as usual words fail me.

会津で出会えてよかったよ。

 

of balloons, pink men in roller skates, and clouds of shu cream

i promise myself a new printer/scanner when it is over, as a consolation for all the worrying i had unwittingly put myself through. i worry over the silliest things really. i guess i have always been that girl in the corner of the room, stressing and spacing out at the same time. then it dawned upon me that i’m actually a creative and imaginative individual. after all, it takes a serious amount of imagination to be as paranoid as i am.

according to a personality test from a japanese magazine, i am also masochistic. couple that with my blood type, i have now acquired a spanking new label that i can potentially be proud of. henceforth, let it be known that i am an OM, among all other things. personality typing based on your blood type is of course a cute thing japanese people do. but adding that information with your pain affliction preference is nothing short of japanese ingenuity. half the magazine is filled with information from which blood type is most prone to wearing revealing clothing to the compatibility of you and your boyfriend based on both your blood types and whether if he is the only child, has 1 sibling, or lives in a brood; and the other half of the magazine packed with useful advertisements for breast enhancement surgeries and more. what more could i possibly need to know in life?

i wasn’t really joking when i mentioned before that i think in balloons. there is a whole lot of nothing much in my mind all threatening to pop at the same time. and japanese tv isn’t helping me at all. just a few days ago, i was watching this man in pink-satin pyjamas with the same pink satin material wrapped round his forehead complete with a really puffy ribbon finish rolling-skating and singing an 80s hit pop song with a group of similarly clad roller-skating background dancers. i would have asked someone to save me except that i was moved to the point of sharing the nostalgia felt by those watching the performance. never mind that i knew neither the pink roller skating singer nor the very nice song he was singing.

so while i am trying very hard to let the excess air out of my head, i don’t quite mind this strange change in me.

だれを待っていたのだろう。
何を待っていたのだろう。
何のために、あんなに一途になっていたのだろう。
そしてオレはこれから、なにをすればいいのだろう
水色男は、ぼんやりしてしまった。

水色男は、考えるのがめんどくさくなった。
雲がふわふわしているので、シュークリームのようだった。
シュークリームの空気がぬけたようだった。
水色男は嬉しくなった。
椅子からぽんと、飛んでみた。
水色男はシュークリームの中にいた。
シュークリームの中にうかんでいるようだった。
うれしかった。
自分を素敵だと思った。–銀色夏生

 

10 minutes of dusty freedom

the hamster ball broke open yesterday night and pi had a little adventure roaming around the room.

and pi’s silly owner went into a mild panic. but still, that silly owner was terribly proud that pi poked her nose out from the dark, dusty cupboard when her name was called.

-

i think the more than usually fogged-up state of mind is returning to its usual quite fogged-up state. and with any luck, it might actually clear up quite soon. but i know it’ll never be crystal though. i’m just one of those with the gift of finger smudges.

and i’m stealing part of the school festival’s theme and making it my own.

自分らしく…

as I am.

 

summer vacation and beige walls

 

カナちゃんおたんじょうびおめでとう

we had a surprise birthday party for kanako, a girl, or now more so a lady, i’ve known since i came to japan. at first, we were wondering if she would turn up at all, since she was expected to perform a mission impossible for class the next day. luckily, she arrived, in every sense of the word, fashionably late. pretty in her yukata and late enough for us to bring out the cake and break into a birthday song when she stepped in.

her birthday presents from all of us include a drink dispenser shaped as a peeing cherubim and a pointer-thing with a piece of poop on the tip. from the picture, it’s probably easy to guess who were the two people entrusted with the sacred task of buying the present.

there are some wacky pictures of course, for example, of her posing with her present. but a birthday girl should always be presented in the prettiest way possible. happy 2*th birthday Kanako, wonderful teacher, and life of all our young teachers’ parties.

 

and summer starts with spring cleaning

it’s here. and i was just whining about rain when summer smacked me with a 36 degrees the very next day the rainy season was reported to have ended.

my hamsters have become quite lethargic in this heat, preferring to stay in the cage and pretend to be hamster rugs then to come out to play. but strangely, i feel like i’m stirring out of some kind of hibernation.

so my summer is starting with 大掃除. this time, i don’t have the usual urge to throw away or arrange stuff. i just want to wipe all the dust away.

i’ve been thinking of buying myself a scanner and printer combi (canon pixus mp600) so i can start digitising my drawings and work on them. i’ve always been an impulsive buyer, thinking that a new something would motivate me to do things. i guess that’s how i always end up with piles of unread books and dusty equipments.

so this time i’m reversing the order. i have been drawing much more to justify myself a scanner (then i can stop taking crappy photos of my drawings). and if i turn my doodles into illustrations of some sort, consistently, a macbook pro will be next in line. maybe as a birthday present to myself. yay.

and i’m also going to learn how to sew myself and H new tie-pants. and make more cute rubber stamps. and some more squashable toys. and study for my japanese language proficiency test. and improve my english >_< (笑）

理由が特にないけど。ただ楽しいから。

summer vacation is too short.

 

tea eggs on a rainy day

i spent 2 hours today simmering hard-boiled eggs with cracked shells in tea and soy sauce. the result is really pretty, and taste very much like egg. i actually have no idea how tea eggs should taste like, but the eggs are so fun to look at that the taste is quite secondary.

i’m intending to serve up these eggs at a farewell pot-luck party on thursday. many of the jets are leaving this season. while i’m not particularly close to the jet community, there are a few people i will miss. in japan, the whole 出会いと別れ thing is particularly pronounced. perhaps it’s a part of their culture, perhaps it’s the situation i’m in. but i can’t help feeling that i’ve said goodbye a thousand times. and i’m not the person leaving this time.

the rainy season is not over yet and real summer is about 10 days overdue. it is not the i don’t appreciate the prolonged cooler weather. and i’ve always liked rain, the smell, the sound and how a rainy day can make me feel mellow and relaxed to the point of sleepy. but here in japan, i am coming up with new word associations for rainy days. and one of them, is itchy.

 

aizu’s tradition, tie-pants and portuguese artists

when we saw ines, the new portuguese artist of nishi aizu, and the cool tie-pants she made from traditional japanese woven fabric, we all wanted one. inas offered to make them for us if we bought the fabric. and for payment, we would give her the rest of the fabric so she could make new pants for herself! how cool is that?

so jay, megu, nozomi and i went fabric choosing and were also shown the really old machines, supposedly more than a hundred years old, which made them. it was amazing.

then we drove down to where inas is living with another fellow portuguese artist. an old elementary school building, no longer used for that purpose, in the rural countryside. i saw her art works and they were so pretty.

dinner was yaki udon and avocado mousse.

i feel so inspired. and i guess it is a really good start.