Bright Spot by @crista_leonard art direction and design by @carolmontpart , all the images taken between 2021 and 2023
-M, what we see what we feel, what I see through my eyes what I feel through all my sensors, you and I we share the same sky but we see it differently, we share the same sun and moon and stars but see it differently, some of us we are sharing the same climate but w our bodies our skins our mind react differently, we all having 24 hours a day 365 days a year, but our notions of time aren’t the same. And sometimes I wish you could see and feel the same way as I do.
All these images are the observations of Crista and show us what she saw when she was in somewhere probably many others have been.
The sky the moon the sun the stars the sunlight and water what a precious unaffordable gifts we have but many people are taking granted of
Thank you Crista and Carol for making this beautiful book!
Mt Fuji by Ishikawa Naoki - J, Picked this from my friend Yuka who runs @hi_bridge_books … my favorite book store that I’ve never been to :) I first opened the book to the sunlight pouring through treetops spread and knew I needed to have it before looking through the rest. Ishikawa has climbed Mt Fuji 20 times. For his 20th climb dude strapped his medium format for the ride to help him think through something… As a climber, he sees the mountain as a mountain that should be climbed while he understands the rest of Japanese the people (maybe the world) sees the mountain as this historical and spiritual icon. He just wanted to make pictures that depict Mt Fuji as a mountain without mimicking its classic iconic, god image. So he just shoots the whole mountain while being on the whole mountain…. With these pictures he wonders how Mt Fuji as an image of god would’ve been represented differently if the ancient Japanese had the climbing gear to see the whole thing instead of seeing it from a distance. Historically, Big scale mountain = God. Maybe if they couldve climbed the thing, then small element of mountain = God. I’m sure the sentiment exists in some form already…. Anyways!!!! His pictures show God really closely in so many different forms… infinities of whiteness, pathways endlessly upward, seas of clouds, the ceremonies happening at the mountains base, the comfort of his tent. These are the places I think I find god in too (“little” things) so I really fuck with this book and I really fuck with Ishikawa for climbing the whole ass mountain to show us these things.
as if it is by @ateliernigelpeake published also by Nigel Peake in this autumn of 2025. -M
All the watercolor drawings were done during Peake’s one week visit in Nagano Japan last year.
Have been seeing Peake’s work here and there and always got attracted to his books no matter which book store I was at. But this August was my first time bringing a book of his home. I don’t know if you feel related to me, especially recently since last winter, sometimes when I find books I like and I know that I would love to have it at home but at the same time also question myself oh do I really want it, I know I want it now but will I still want to have it later … after that debating in my head 80% of time ended up not buying… I guess i was tending to be a rational shopper? Well, also there’re lots of times lots of regrets stated to emerge from not buying the books I wanted to have…. I guess it’s just life that needs time to let me figure out what to do
Ohhh btw when I got this book at Yvon Lambert in that random summer day I had no idea Nigel was also at the store, after i paid Bruno was asking me if I wanted to get it signed, I was like how.. then Bruno told me that Nigel was right in front of the store… and yes lucky, I got my copy signed
Piles of Time - Risaku Suzuki
(Second Half) -P
This is the second half/ chapter of the book - called Izanami - that I think really kind of explodes the narrative and gives this book its magic. They fly around different places, times, seasons - and sometimes settle into moments like the incredible sequence of a crowded ritual. Here the layout gets even better and stranger, with strips of photos running into single images. There is the sea, the road, the forest. All together feels like an experience of perception of a place, or maybe the expansion of what happens in the first half. And the images are just soooo beautiful !
Piles of Time - Risaku Suzuki
- P
A beautiful and special book I spent a long time debating buying - also probably the most money I’ve spent on a book ever 🫣
It is split into two halves/ chapters - the first one is here and I’ll post the second one separately because there’s just so much that’s good. These photos are geographically contained to a region in Japan (Osorezan) where there is a major Buddhist temple and pilgrimage - but Suzuki photographs this loaded site in such a way that sort of throws ritual on its head, instead leaning in to the sunny idyll of the region and the sort of hush that pervades…
Also just lushly wonderfully printed with some strange strange layout choices that serve it so well
Barnett Newman - 1972 Tate catalogue
-P
Kind of a banger this one, the wide format leads to these great arrangements of plates of giant paintings all in lines on the page. Mostly printed in black and white but every once in a while in lovely vivid color.. held up by a long essay throughout that I haven’t read but I will eventually….
Islands, Islets, and Their Mushrooms by @seeing_itself J- Picked this up at Dashwood last Tuesday before taking the ferry to governors island for the first time… Didn’t really make the obvious island connection until typing out that sentence hahahahahaha ok cool and awesome connection. Seen most of these images before. My roommate has this big mushroom book; Paige has the smaller one. I like this journal size of the one I now have and the 2 different types of paper for the images and words. It’ll serve as a nice souvenir for my first island visit and being at dashwood with my girlfriend for the first time too. There’s one picture in this mix that really makes me miss home. I miss home.
Gabriel Orozco - Innercycles
-P
Great pink Japanese Orozco catalog from 2015 - has such a wide range of work together, you can see the connections and shared forms between it all. Reminds me of the great Marian Goodman Spacetime installation office that was up in midtown for a while… like entering this other space where he gently pokes at our material reality.. and those paper trees! Wooo
Ok #back from Summer Hiatus with this banger of an On Kawara catalog - small, stapled, and so good. Documenting an installation of Date Paintings at the Dar al-Kalima school kindergarten in Bethlehem, Palestine in 2007; coinciding with the Second Riwaq Biennale in Palestine.
Lovely simple documentation and a great text; these paintings in a classroom hit far above their weight
- P
