where i come from, people make stuff. they make bunkbeds, prickly pear pickers, christmas angels and tree houses. they dye t-shirts, sew skirts, make barbie furniture and install their own rugs. they bake bread, make soy milk cream puffs, grow their own tomatoes, pickle their own eggplant and that’s just the beginning. when i grew up i was lucky to fall in with a political, crazy crafty bunch of kids who silk screened, cut stencils, organized conferences, built a youth center and started the radical cheerleading movement among other things.

2.5 years ago, at 26, i left my life as a library worker and artist in south florida and moved to japan. an unprepared english teacher dropped in the no man’s land of kanagawa (about 30 minutes by train from tokyo). i discovered combini bentos, hyaku yen shops and muji. harajuku streets lined with too small, made in china, flammable clothing, and uniqlo. plastic drawers and no space, the occasional second hand shop that is tragically 90’s and exorbitantly priced. it was consumer culture shock.

japan is many awesome things, art, culture, history, cuisine, but for me, tokyo is not d.i.y..

this blog is about finding d.i.y. in tokyo and recording it.