Tag Archives: small worlds

… I’m a cat …

She greets me gently and calls me lady Shye. Appropriate, since I just about tolerate having my neck scratched, and only because every morning she feeds me a few crunchy bits and water. When the water smells, I reject it and wait around for a fresh serve. She knows better than to invite me into the house, and I’d never attempt to use the old cat flap, obviously installed for a previous lodger. I was traumatized once. It’s her guess that I don’t belong to anyone, which is half true.

While I wait for my morning treat, she tests my patience, by staring forever at something on her desk. It’s a mystery. Or she is combing her hair etc. … then I do my own manicure, to mirror her. Then she smiles. Though she smiles more at the Robins, which she feeds, tossing oats into vacant flowerpots, but only after I’ve seemingly vanished around the corner of the shed.

I like the peace here. I can sit for hours up in her garden. She must wonder what I’m thinking … nothing … cats are good at that. A gust, a movement, a scent, even a slight vibration hitting my ears is enough for me. Anyway, she seems to appreciate my calm presence. As to what goes on in her mind, I don’t have a clue.

At times I wonder if I’ve been drawn here as her guardian, like the robins, the blackbirds, and the fox, and lately the butterflies.

I keep a distance when she has visitors. I don’t trust humans unless they’ve proven to honour my shyness. I avoid fights with other creatures. I’m not of that kin. Even the fox respects that.

This is just to say to you humans, should you have guardians around you, treat them well, they may be send by angels.

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… poetic trash – miniature sculptures …

Miniature scupture - 2981The eye-catching miniatures created by Yuji Agematsu pulled me back to my student phase in Munich during the 1970ies, when a group of friends looked out for small items like roots, twigs, leaves, seeds, grasses, feathers, stones, shells, dried or fresh flowers, the occasional bottle top or bits of shiny sweet wrappers, and sampled such bits into cellophane bags. We then handed these tiny poetry worlds to pedestrians or people sitting outside cafes in the then student district of Munich, Schwabing. It gave us thrill when recipients expressed a shock of surprise.

Yuji Agematsu is drawn to trash. Since mid-1990, his daily ritual is collecting small debris from New York’s streets. From the harvest he creates dreamlike dioramas inside cellophane sleeves of cigarette packets.

In this delightful interview (press for link to a separate page) he shares how his passion for collecting started during his childhood. Here a few more snippets: ‘I see each object as a notation in terms of music. Each has its own sound and rhythm,’ or, ‘Each person has to find his or her own sense of scale,’ or ‘… my objects are accidental objects, already consumed. The object itself stimulates me. The subject relationship is reversed. I’d say that one is consciously unconscious, and the other is unconsciously conscious.’

The last thought rhymes with a recent thought of mine I shared on twitter … my mind is unconsciously magical, while my unconscious mind is irrationally pragmatic …  Like most poetically inclined people I embrace paradox to be able to function in daily life .

Yuji’s search for trash treasures developed into a language that emotionally embraces urban archaeology. He attracts bits of litter we may regard with a smirk, mostly ignore or simply not notice. While his miniature installations are scaled down to finger size sculptures, the mind-expanding and transformative effect equals grand scale installations. My experience, apart from the cognitive surprise, was being left with a bodily sensation, a deep feeling connection with these miniatures.

world objects 1 - smaller

World objects from my sand tray

This deep feeling of wonder can happen in sand play therapy; where in a tray of fine sand world objects are brought into relationship. The imaginary process can symbolise models of operation in the life of a client, bringing with it emotional clarity.

I have miniature installation in my home, on windowsills … unable to resist picking up feathers,  seeds, leaves, driftwood, pebbles and so on, which often hold the story of an eternal moment in time.

A small black stone, for example, features prominently  as a protagonist in my novel, Course of Mirrors..

 

You can glean more information about Yuji Agematsu and his impressive work here in this Guardian gallery, and in this article in Frieze … here.

The earlier images of Yuji Agametsu’s work are courtesy of the Miguel Abreu gallery, NY.

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