Apr 6, 2010

April Fool's for Tea

I have a tea friend in Seattle who has been collecting whimsical things to use for an April Fool's Day chakai.  I love his sense of humor and creativity in putting together found objects for the utensils for this chakai.

Take a look at some of these:

 Sorry for the cut off image, but if you look closely at this scroll, it is mounted and hanging sideways.


 Dandelions in a pickle jar with a chicken clock for an incense container

Here is a rather formal nagaita (long board) set up with the whimsical utensils. An onion tureen for mizusashi, large cup for kensui, mixer for a whisk, medicine bottle for tea caddy, steel ladle for hishaku and teaspoon for a chashaku.

Peeps for okashi!
 I wonder if it was just as shocking or whimsical in the late 1500s when Rikyu put his flowers in a bamboo vase, and used a teabowl made by a roof tile maker?





4 comments:

  1. Steph, thank you for your comment. I once was invited to an Alice chakai. The kogo was a white rabbit, the sweet was a cake with "eat me" written in icing, the scroll was a shikishi written backwards and suspended from the tokonoma in front of a mirror. When Japanese choose themes for chakai, it also reflects these type of iconic images and the guests have a good time working out the clues that the host has provided for them.

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  2. This is great. At first, some of those common objects looked jarring to me, but that must be how the found objects that Rikyu used appeared to his contemporaries. And I love peeps! What is the 'blanket' the peeps are wrapped in?

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