THE CRANE WIFE 鶴の恩返し The Tragedy of Having

The Crane Wife is one of Japan’s oldest folk tales. A poor man rescues an injured crane. A mysterious woman appears at his door. They fall in love. She weaves extraordinary cloth to support their life together. There is one condition: Never watch me while I weave. One day, curiosity wins. He opens the door. Inside, he discovers the crane — pulling out her own feathers, one by one, to make the cloth that sustains them. The spell breaks. She flies away. The tragedy is not losing what we love. The tragedy is failing to see its value while we still have it. While she is beside him, her love feels permanent. Her sacrifice invisible. Her presence ordinary. Only when she disappears does he understand what she was giving. It makes me ask: What am I failing to see because I believe it will always be there? I think about my mother. Every year, another feather disappears. Her eyesight fades. Her body aches. She walks a little slower. For more than forty years, she quietly gave pieces of herself away — cooking, raising children and grandchildren, giving us a moral backbone, holding a family together. One feather. Then another. Then another. And still, we live as if people we love will always be there. Until one day there are no more Sundays. No more family meals. No more chances to say the words we postponed because we thought time was endless. The sacred never announces its last day. We do this with everything we love. We take relationships for granted. We forget our bodies until they remind us. We admire handmade objects but forget the years of devotion behind them. AI can imitate the appearance of beauty. But it cannot inherit the lived experience, sacrifice and consciousness that give beauty meaning. And we take from the earth as if its generosity has no end. This collection is my meditation on the impermanence of true gifts. These vessels are designed to hold something — but they cannot fully hold. Each carries a deliberate rupture — a tear created by my hand at the final moment of making. A reminder that everything beautiful carries the possibility of loss. These vessels exist between worlds: Here and not here. Whole and broken. Permanent and already leaving. The greatest gifts leave without making a sound. The tragedy was not losing the gift. The tragedy was failing to recognise it while it was still ours. Perhaps the sacred is already sitting beside us.

Black Stoneware Sculpture, Limited edition of 1/8

H: 56 cm W: 23cm D: 23cm (approximately)