STORY OF TIME AND FORM

The story of this piece begins long before it entered the studio. Its foundation is an early 1900s Japanese zeni-bako, a wooden money box traditionally used by merchants to collect and safeguard coins. Made as an object of utility, it carries the evidence of that former life in its worn edges, aged wood, and patina.

More than a century later, the box was found while thrifting in Los Angeles. There was something compelling about an object that had traveled so far, both in place and in time, while still holding traces of a history that could never be fully known.

Rather than restoring it or disguising its age, the box became the starting point for something new. Hand-built ceramic forms were individually shaped and glazed, then composed above it, creating a dialogue between the permanence of the found object and the intimacy of something made by hand.

What once existed to hold coins now holds an entirely different purpose. From Japan to Los Angeles and into the studio, the piece allows one story to remain visible while another begins.