Sugared Flowers and Dreams

Buying flowers on ordinary days is a habit I picked up in my 20s. Sometimes it was just a single flower, sometimes it was a bunch of flowers I liked. Buying seasonal colors and scents for myself with money I earned made me feel like a full-fledged adult.

If you ask me what my favorite flower is, there are so many that it's hard to answer, but if I had to choose just one, my favorite flower would be the gardenia. In the rainy season, I find a white scent in the damp wind, and I enjoy putting my nose close to the source of the scent blooming in someone else's garden or hedge and sniffing it.

I will never forget the day I first found a gardenia at a florist. I often see them in pots, but it was unusual to see them as cut flowers, so I took one home like a treasure. That night, the scent that filled the room was pure, sad, rich, and insanely euphoric... I felt it was just like love. I also felt an indescribable sense of immorality at having imprisoned something so beautiful in such a place and monopolized it all to myself.

After one day, the white flowers turn cream-colored and the bluish fragrance becomes mellow. By the third day, brown spots appear on the petals.

How long can a flower be considered "alive"?
I could gaze upon the browning, decaying flowers, giving off a faint, dry fragrance, forever. But every time I hold a flower in my hands, I feel as if I am presented with an unanswerable question about the "time" and "eternity" of living beings.

A collection of works by Ichimura Yume titled "Flowers" reminds us of such nights with flowers.

Ichimura's sincere gaze is fixed on the outlines and shadows of the flowers, and his paintbrush traces their shapes, but what he captures seems to be an image or fantasy that borrows the shape of the flowers. In the painting, which seems to be Ichimura's monologue, ``Paintings are like mirrors,'' the flowers bloom on the mirror surface of the table and on the surface of the water beyond the glass, like a dream he had on a helpless blue night.
Although they are supposed to be personal expressions, the mysterious thing about Ichimura's pictures, words, and flowers is that they also act as a mirror for those who simply look at them.

The baby pink cover, housed in a blue sleeve, is a pop trap, like the excitement of opening a box of sweets. Like a Sofia Coppola movie, this book has a bitter essence wrapped in sugary candy that will leave you wanting more.

Yuzume Ichimura - Flower

Artwork: Ichimura Yume (illustration), Urakawa Shota (design)
Format: book / Hard cover, sleeve case
Product no: 9784910735023

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Text and photos by Fumika Arasawa designer Freelance ⇄ company employee, occasionally helping friends out. Moved to Matsumoto in 2024. Instagram: @fumika * Click here to purchase related products at rovakk musikk.

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WALLFLOWER CATALOGUE

In each episode, designer Ayaka Arasawa will introduce one of her inspirational artworks, which will blossom on your walls every day.
It will be updated once a month, at the timing of the second solar term (around the 20th of each month).

Bookmarks and archives can be found here .