guardian
The Guardian
To be a guardian is not to collect, arrange, or explain. It is to remain — to make sure that what was left here does not disappear on your watch.
This house has stood for some 150 years. Nothing inside was brought in from outside. Everything was already here.
Guardian's Essentials
These tools let me touch wood that is some 150 years old without breaking it. That requires attention. Through that attention, I learn what the house needs.
The old pickle room is being converted to house two 1,000-liter water tanks. The neighbors switched to municipal water years ago. I chose differently. The former guardians of this house never depended on outside water either. Some things are worth keeping.
Preserving the Structure
From the foundation beams to the ridge ornament at the top, the structure is what makes everything else possible. If the building goes, nothing else matters.
The Shinto understanding is that spirit persists — in land, in object, in the quality of silence a place holds. This house still holds that silence. The work is to keep it so.
The main house entrance floor — now concrete — serves as the workshop. The structure is some 150 years old. The work is ongoing.
Minato Gallery exists for those who can receive what is here. Not everyone will. That is fine.
— Isurugi, Aizu —