The pandemic continues to restrict what we can do. We eat alone or without speaking. This diminishment of dining and communicating at meals has become the norm. Summer has arrived; we want to be free, to be free of restrictions and to set our thoughts free. These windows express such desires, combining the everyday right before us with something far, far away, the vast presence of the universe.

Biodynamic agriculture is said to be the next step in agriculture after organic-based agriculture. In addition to avoiding use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, it accounts for the waxing and waning of the moon, the Earth and space, and the rhythm of plants. It’s a grand and seemingly mysterious approach to farming. In ancient Rome, cooks were expected to understand mathematics, medicine, art, and astrology.

This holistic approach which melds science with art and mystery helps us feel that potential, in which romance and the future are not to be found exclusively in the seen, but also the unseen as well.

One window shows pots and women scooping out planets. Waking up in the morning, feeling hungry and eating is a normal everyday process, linked here to the rotation of the Earth, the seasons, and the movement of the stars. When thinking freely, even as Einstein, the tongue tastes the vast universe. That is the story expressed here.

The other window creates a marvelous mythopoeic world that is inspired by the words for lunar and solar eclipse—in Japanese based on the character for eating—and ideas from biodynamic agriculture to connect the everyday act of eating to planetary ebbs and flows.

Yasuko Sato, Art Director