Tuesday, May 8, 2012

yoroi-kabuto


I heard that my mother's mother (my grandmother) bought this elaborate yoroi-kabuto ornament for my first Kodomo-no-hi (children's day) celebration in the 1970s. I recently shipped it from my mother's apartment in Japan to Edmonton, just in time for May 5th to set it up for my son, who will soon turn two.

It's the first time it's been displayed in decades, and I am humbled by the thought that the hopes and prayers for the well-being and future of a baby boy, embodied in this replicated miniature armour, will have now involved four generations. As I sketched, I thought of those hopes and prayers... the same ones that my parents must have had decades ago.

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