Kyoto

It’s not the first time I have stopped at the unwrapping of an object, only to admire and fall in love with the wrapping itself. A metaphor perhaps, if you’re in need, of the process being the point of evaluation and pleasure rather than the end result. Found as is, from a flea market in Kyoto. We were driving through, in a camper van, which doesn’t so much tend for great city parking/sleeping, so we stayed in one of Japan’s plentiful and high-tech parking spaces. They lock your tires in until you pay the fee. Handy for a daytime car park, a little less romantic whilst you sleep in the middle of a suburb next to real homes.

A life’s work could be based around the marvel that is Kyoto. Instead, I had a day. And a lucky one it was to find these bowls. The paper easily represents, without any manipulation by me, the age and care of age, hidden in the creases, in the folds of this well-worn paper, so beautifully complimenting each other in their color pallet and softened into the shape they have been protecting for so many years. These porcelain bowls shall never live without their paper-protecting counterpart, as long as I hold onto them and look at them they shall not.