A spirited journey through the world of collectible artisan puzzles
Pairing craft cocktails with crafty puzzles
Boxes and Boos
Spooky season is upon us again! I love a well themed offering for both the Boxes and the Booze so I’m getting in the scary spirit and breaking out the scary spirits.
Bread and Butter
Milkfat (also known as butter fat) is present in milk as microscopic globules kept separate by their phospholipid and protein membranes.
Creature Feature
Three Hundred Sixty Five Million years ago, give or take, during a brief sixty million year stint known as the Devonian period (between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods) of the Paleozoic era, the first amphibious tetrapods made their appearance on Earth.
The Fisherman’s Wish
Japanese Karakuri Creation Group artist Yoh Kakuda weaves magical tales in wood. Each wonderful creation tells a story, but some are simply more magical.
Lighthouse Keeper
I have a fascination with lighthouses, and I’m not alone. There is something evocative about them, the lonely sentinel keeping watch, keeping an eye on the sea and offering a guiding light to the lost or weary traveler. The lighthouse guards us well, but, who guards the lighthouse?
Aquatic Bird Haniwa
Throughout the history of humankind we have been tied to the past, lavishly celebrating life with the ceremony of death and memory.
A Long Wait
It is not the premise that reality
Is solid. It may be a shade that traverses
A dust, a force that traverses a shade.
- Wallace Stevens
Cheshire Cat
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
Ursa Major
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
― Philip Pullman
Skunk Attack!
“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” - Henry David Thoreau
Walking with the Moon
I’m facing the new year with this sense of wonder, walking with the moon, if you will. Yoh Kakuda captures the sentiment beautifully in this piece, which is closer in style to his automaton work where the movement is the beginning and the end.
Bear Gets Ready
Yoh Kakuda makes wonderfully whimsical creations for the group, with boxes which almost always take the form of animals. For the travel theme, Yoh chose a bear who is getting ready for a trip of his own.
Spring Night
In Japan, the frog is a common symbol of spring, perhaps due to the many species which erupt in song all throughout the rice fields this time of year.
Tin Woodman
We’re off to see the wizard this week as we get slightly sentimental. Created as part of the Karakuri Creation Group’s “Story” exhibition, the Tin Woodman from Japanese artist Yoh Kakuda might just melt your heart.