Another Time, 2024, 磁器, 268 × 83 × 53Another Time, 2024, porcelain, 268 × 83 × 53
友人が忘れ物を取りにうちに来た。彼はバタバタと一通り部屋を見回し、私はいつも通り黙って珈琲を淹れる。探し疲れたのか人の部屋で立ちすくむ彼。「何かを忘れたんだ」とつぶやく彼を椅子に掛けさせ珈琲を出す。先週も来た時というのに近況を語り合い、いつものように時間が過ぎていく。「また来るかも」彼はそう言い残して帰っていった。私は扉を閉め振り返る。忘れ物は変わらず、守神のように鎮座している。まるで最初からここにあるべきもののように。A friend came by to pick up something he had left behind. He bustled around the room, looking everywhere, while I made coffee in silence as I always do. Tired of searching, he stood there stranded in someone else’s room. “I’ve forgotten something,” he murmured; I sat him down and put a coffee in front of him. He had been here only last week, yet we caught up on each other’s news and the time passed as it always does. “I might come again,” he said, and left. I closed the door and turned around. The forgotten thing was still there, enthroned like a guardian spirit. As if it had belonged here from the start.
Camera, 2024, 磁器, 90 × 27 × 47Camera, 2024, porcelain, 90 × 27 × 47
ある昼のこと。信号待ちをしていると、女性に道を尋ねられ、駅も近かったので一緒に歩くことにした。出張できているという、貿易会社のコーディネーターらしき女性は歩くのと話し口調が早い。矢継ぎ早に繰り出されるマシンガントークに圧倒されつつも、人目を気にせずそれなりに大きな声で話す彼女が面白くて、ふんふん話を聞いていた。人混みにいるのに二人だけの時間。「カメラだけを持って出掛ける遊びをしているんです」「あなた面白いわね」そう言って改札で別れた。「じゃあね優しい人」と彼女は手を振りながら去っていく。名前を聞くのも忘れ、手を振る反対側の手には電源の入っていないカメラ。あの日以来その遊びをしていない。One afternoon, waiting at a crossing, I was asked for directions by a woman. The station was close, so we walked together. She seemed to be a coordinator at a trading company, in town on business, and she walked as fast as she talked. Overwhelmed by the machine-gun chatter, I still found her funny, talking at full volume without a care for who was listening, and I nodded along. Two people alone together in a crowd. “I play a game where I go out with nothing but a camera.” “You’re an interesting one.” With that we parted at the ticket gate. “See you, kind stranger,” she said, waving as she went. I had forgotten to ask her name; in the hand that wasn’t waving was a camera, switched off. I haven’t played that game since.
Too red, too white, 2024, 磁器, 70 × 28 × 96Too red, too white, 2024, porcelain, 70 × 28 × 96
それは透明で、澱みがなく、生々しささえある。不器用な力強さは小気味良く、辺りを照らす。It is transparent, without sediment, almost raw. Its clumsy strength is bracing, and it lights up everything around it.
Serenity, 2024, 磁器, 40 × 38 × 123Serenity, 2024, porcelain, 40 × 38 × 123
原稿の締め切りに間に合い、仕事もひと段落したのに得体の知れないものに追われていた。息詰まった私は忙しない気持ちを抑えて、用もないのに百貨店に立ち寄る。7階の催事場では新作の香水の展示会で賑わっていて、白い柱が並ぶギリシャ建築風のセット、大理石の床には光が反射していて凝った演出に見とれていた。私は自然と店員に誘導されて、気づけば5種類もの香水を手首やムエットに吹きかけられていた。ふとひとつの香りに心が惹かれる。気取ったふりをして、「夏の爽やかさと、晩秋の夜のような香りがします。」自分でも少し大げさだと思い急に恥ずかしくなったが、店員は感心した様子を見せすっと微笑んで「展示空間に入った時にあなたの正体に気づきました。どこか“静謐”さを感じまして。」それは私が知りたかった答えだった。纏ってしまっている静謐さと、纏いきれない静謐さ。私は思った。正気に戻してくれたこの人から香水を買おうと。I had made the manuscript deadline and my work had settled down, yet something I couldn’t name was still chasing me. Stifled, I held back the restlessness and dropped into a department store for no reason. The seventh-floor event space was crowded with the launch of a new perfume: a set of white columns in the style of Greek architecture, light reflecting off a marble floor, and I stood gazing at the elaborate display. Before I knew it a clerk had steered me over and sprayed five different scents on my wrists and on blotters. One of them caught my heart. Putting on airs, I said, “It smells of summer freshness, and of a late-autumn night.” I felt at once that I had overdone it and was embarrassed, but the clerk looked impressed, smiled quietly and said, “I noticed who you were the moment you walked into the space. There is something serene about you.” It was the answer I had wanted. The serenity I wear whether I mean to or not, and the serenity I cannot quite wear. I decided I would buy my perfume from this person, who had brought me back to myself.
MAP, 2024, 磁器, 100 × 208 × 5MAP, 2024, porcelain, 100 × 208 × 5
初めて訪れた街。連れと喧嘩をし1人で宿へ戻ることになったのだが、手元にあるのは財布、カメラ、腕時計、メトロカードだけ。一先ず駅の方へ歩き、掲示板に並ぶ色とりどりのパンフレットの中から、6つ折りの地図を手に取った。現在地を確認し、どうやら宿は3つ先の駅にあるらしい。そうこうしているうちに電車がやってきて、各停か急行かも分からないまま飛び乗った。窓際に立って景色を眺めていると、次第に不安が頭をもたげた。見覚えのあるはずの駅名が、通り過ぎていく。慌てて地図を見直す頃には、目的の駅はすでに背後だった。仕方なく、2つ先の駅で降りて各停に乗り換える。車内で揺られながら、頭の中で地図を再構築する。出口を出たら、あの通りをまっすぐ行けば宿に着くはず。しかし、何かがおかしい。地図通りに進んでいるのに、目指す建物は一向に現れない。頭の中の地図はそのままでも、現実の景色は反転している。きれいに真反対の方向へと私を導いていたのだ。ただ、旅はいつも予定外の方が少しだけ面白い。A city I was visiting for the first time. After a quarrel with my companion I was to return to the hotel alone, with nothing on me but a wallet, a camera, a wristwatch and a metro card. I walked toward the station and, from the colourful pamphlets on a notice board, took a map folded in six. I found where I was; the hotel seemed to be three stops away. A train arrived while I was still working it out and I jumped on, with no idea whether it was local or express. Standing by the window, watching the scenery, I grew uneasy. Station names I should have recognised were passing by. By the time I hurriedly checked the map again, my stop was already behind me. I got off two stops on and changed to a local train. Swaying in the carriage, I rebuilt the map in my head: out of the exit, straight along that street, and the hotel should be there. But something was wrong. I was following the map, yet the building never appeared. The map in my head was unchanged, but the real scenery was reversed. It had been leading me neatly in the opposite direction. Still, a journey is always a little more interesting when it goes off plan.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. 2024, 磁器, φ105 × 33Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. 2024, porcelain, φ105 × 33
寝台特急に乗る前に渡された手紙。「有難う。感謝しています。ありがとう。」A letter handed to me before I boarded the overnight sleeper. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.”
話の種, 2024, 磁器土, 山山椒の苗木Seeds of Stories (Hanashi no Tane), 2024, porcelain clay, sapling of yama-sansho
旅先でもらった種。花山椒でもなく実山椒でもない山山椒(別名犬山椒)。その人が話すエピソードがいつも強烈で、床が見えなくなるぐらいの本に囲まれていた文豪が最後には犬小屋で死んでしまった話。道端で知り合ったギタリストはギターの国際審査員だった話。食事の席で知り合った友人の旦那さんが世界的に有名な植物学者。元々は塗り師で、今は世界中を旅している美容師にあった話。いろんな話の種があった。帰りにもらったこの種に集約されているような気がした。種をもらうやりとりっていいな。さて、帰ったら植えてみるか。Seeds I was given on a journey. Not hana-sansho, not mi-sansho, but yama-sansho, also called inu-sansho. The stories that person told were always intense: the great writer who lived surrounded by books until the floor disappeared and died, in the end, in a doghouse; the guitarist met on the roadside who turned out to be an international guitar judge; the friend met over dinner whose husband was a world-famous botanist; the hairdresser, once a lacquer artisan, now travelling the world. So many seeds of stories. The seeds I was given on leaving seemed to gather them all up. There is something good about the exchange of seeds. Well then, once I’m home, I’ll plant them.
