Christmas cards

As cards arrive from abroad, I catch up with the news of the year with the friends who, otherwise, have no contact with. I have friends whom I haven't met for about 20 years in Spain, Germany and Japan, and for fewer years in other parts of the globe.

You might think at the age of Internet, I should be able to communicate with them more than once a year, surely. But some of them are not connected to Internet (yes), and even those who are on Internet, we just exchange cards not to get into our personal daily lives.

There is a children's song in Japan, in which a goat sent a letter to another goat, but he ate a whole letter before reading it. So he had to write back to ask the sender what was the matter in the letter.

Last Christmas, one Japanese friend living in Spain wrote that her mother was diagnosed with cancer. I imagined how difficult for her not to be able to stay with her mother at the difficult time. So I wrote my feeling about it on this year's card. She apparently sent me a card before mine arrived there, telling me that she had a fantastic year.

Antler pendant top

It is a bit comical, isn't it? Perhaps, I hope, her mother has fully recovered. She tells me that her daughters learn English at school, so she wants to make a trip to UK with them, and come to see me. How wonderful! After 20 years, I would long to see her again. But I don't know how we can manage to get this happen with annual exchange of cards.

Nostalgic, that's the word I would use to describe the relationship.

Just like you, I am so used to Internet, and my life evolves around it. My work, my relationship with friends and family totally depend on it. I do most of my shopping and banking on it. our entertainment in on it. Mike and I communicate via skype most days while we work, and we sometime send emails each other, even when we both are in the house.

But, with those friends I mentioned, I suppose annual card swapping is the most comfortable way for us to communicate. The speed and tempo of our lives are so different. It is such a shame to drag them into our digitalised life, indeed. 

How I got started.

I have started making clay models about 10 months ago. Before that I made functional ware like bowls and cups for two years. At that time, I had had so much stress from my work that I was not able to go to sleep. After dinner, while Mike watched TV, I started making tiny rabbit figures, just size of a thumb. Then gradually I started making larger models. I was hooked, and able to go to sleep easily after palying with clay.

One night, I was looking at the full moon, I remembered old Japanese story about the rabbit who lives on the moon, and makes rice cakes. This year is the year of the rabbit. I fact I was born in the year of the rabbit. I wondered what those friends who also share the birth year were doing recently. I felt a strong urge to make a spiritual rabbit living on the earth, but never forgets about the rabbit on the moon. Now looking back, I might have seen myself in the rabbit, as I have also lived in this foreign land for two decades. But when I go back to Japan, I am not 'real' Japanese any longer. My imagination expanded, and I felt the presence of the rabbit in my heart. 

The rest was easy. My hands were guided by my heart. I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I knew what it will be. This is the rabbit.

 

It was the beginning of all.

I made larger and smaller rabbits after this. In the meantime, I wanted to show all things I had made. So I decided to take a part in Artists' Open Houses.

In this new world of clay, I liked to explore possibilities. It was a sort of brain storming. I turned most of creatures living in my head into clay models. Some of them were old residents, but others only joined while I was making another models. Some changed themselves into another shapes while I was making. I also made many of them without any plans, just let clay guide me. After taking a shape, some of them surprised me, but others were like old friends, finally appeared in front of me.

New resident, 'Jane'