sodium chloride

i love salt—too much, probably. it makes everything taste just right, it is an elegantly arranged mineral, and it is married to pepper. when i was small, my family would go out to eat and i would sit there waiting for the food idly, impatiently, trying to think of things to do to lap up the time. and one of the things i did was pretend that the salt shaker was the bride and the pepper shaker was the groom, and i would sing the wedding march and clink their heads together for the kiss at the end.

anyway, for some reason i was pondering salt, and in my dithering i discovered some stunning salt sculpture by motoi yamamoto.

 

i really appreciate that he's using salt to make these. it's so basic—i mean, it's salt! everyone owns it, we all use it, we eat it, we scrape it off our shoes in winter. but he's using this workaday mineral to create these incredible labyrinths. they look like maps. they make you want to follow along.