At the bottom of the night in the year of the snake

Do you make New Year's cards?
In recent years, the term "New Year's Card Closing" has become common, but even before that, I had wanted to write New Year's cards to let people who had helped me and friends I tended to neglect to contact know that I was still alive, but I got too busy and simply gave up on writing. However, when I was making cards seriously, I did incorporate the zodiac signs into the designs.

So, what is the zodiac sign for this year? It is the year of the snake.
Apparently, the year of the snake is likely to bring about major political upheavals and turning points in the era.

At the end of such a turbulent year, we would like to introduce you to a quiet and mysterious book that will take you to the edge of the forest, away from the chaos of the world.

Partly because I'm an indoor person, I never had the opportunity to see a snake, whether in my hometown of Niigata or when I lived in Tokyo or Yokohama, and I always thought of snakes as fictional creatures that only existed in books and movies. However, when I first moved to Matsumoto, I would occasionally see them, perhaps because the area where I first lived was rich in nature.
A snake swimming smoothly through an irrigation canal that runs beside a rice field. A flattened corpse of a snake near a shrine that I pass by every day. Snakes, even if they are less common than earthworms, seem to be creatures that are closer to us than we think.
And, of course, they are not just alive, they are dead.
When I first encountered a snake, I was surprised, but it never struck me as scary. Its mysterious presence was somehow sacred, and I felt like it was a messenger of God giving me messages between life and death.

"The Puddle Where Snakes Live" is a picture book written by Kaori Nashiki, using the approximately 200 beautiful vessels that Kagoshima Mutsumi created for the exhibition. A horse that has left its herd finds a puddle after passing through several forests. The horse progresses through the story, guided as it is by the sound of a snake that it hears coming from within.

Kagoshima originally did not put any stories or messages into the designs on his pottery, and in fact he made an effort to eliminate them. However, I am immediately impressed by Nashiki's work, which is like that of a shrine maiden or magician, and which has been able to extract such stories from each piece of pottery, which is like a fragment of the vitality of living things and plants.
The book design, with its cover that looks like you're peering into a puddle and the colors of a deep forest, was created by Hideyuki Saito.
This book brings together artists, writers, and designers, each with their own large fan base, and I believe it is a work of art created out of the respect shown to each of the people involved.

Who am I? Who can I become? I think that everyone has had a time in their youth when they dreamed, only to have their dreams shattered.
Now I'm old enough to look back on that time fondly.
What will you find in the snake-infested pool at the bottom of the night on the last day of the year? Why not clear your mind and take a look?

Kaho Nashiki/Riku Kagoshima - The Puddle Where Snakes Live

Artwork: Kagoshima Mutsumi, Saito Hideyuki (book design)
Format: book, hard cover
Product No.: 97849083566506

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Text and photos by Fumika Arasawa designer Freelance ⇄ Corporate, and sometimes help friends. Moved to Matsumoto in 2024. Instagram: @fumika *Click here to purchase related products at rovakk musikk.

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WALLFLOWER CATALOGUE

Designer Arazawa Fumika will introduce one piece of inspirational artwork each time.
It will be updated once a month, around the 20th of each month, at the timing of the second solar term.

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