矛盾
a workshop where contradictions are crafted into objects
Every piece begins with a paradox. Wood that wants to be metal. Stone that wishes to float. The works gathered here are studies in mujun -- the place where opposites refuse to resolve, and instead, settle into form.
Twelve contradictions in wood, brass, paper, and patina.
A pendant lamp cast in solid bronze that appears, when lit, to be folded from rice paper.
The hand expects weight; the eye refuses it. Between expectation and seeing, the room becomes still.
A wall clock with no hands and no numerals -- only the brass tick of an unseen mechanism.
A river stone, hollowed and lined in raw wool, that holds a single match.
The thing kept inside the unyielding is the thing that warms.
A teapot with no lid; the tea is poured in and out through the same wide mouth.
A cabinet of walnut whose drawer fronts have been planed to mimic the still surface of a pond at dusk.
Grain becomes ripple. The drawer that holds your letters holds, also, the memory of every evening you have ever stood beside water.
A hand bell whose clapper is wrapped in felt -- it is rung only by breath.
A low stool whose seat is carved to look like a folded blanket; you sit on the gesture of softness.
A chair pretending to be a comfort that, by being a chair, becomes one.
A copper rod, mounted to the wall, that catches the late sun and casts it as a slow drip across the floor.
A shelf carved from a single timber, deep and broad, sold with the instruction to leave it bare for a season before placing anything upon it.
The work of the maker ends; the work of the room begins. What you do not put on it is the first object it holds.
A candle holder weighted to lean, almost imperceptibly, as the candle burns.
A side table whose top is a perfect square in plan and a perfect circle in elevation; it is both, depending on how you stand.
A geometry that asks you to move before it answers.
A vase glazed to look cracked. It is not. The line is painted with a single brass-tipped brush.
mujun.works is a one-bench workshop on the second floor of a converted printer's building. We make in slow batches, finish by hand, and send each piece with a card that names its contradiction. Commissions open in spring and autumn.