S e c r e t s

Asked to carve a dragon, Peter googled the name of what he thought was the largest lizard in the world. Clearly his brain was thinking about something else because, as I’m sure you all know, he should have typed in Komodo dragon. The confusing results amused him, so he decided to stick with a combination of kimono and dragon. Dragons have been the subject of Japanese folklore for centuries, so a Japanese name was chosen for this fixed edition of 400 (250 tinted black and 150 tinted brown). Kiyo was a teahouse waitress who fell in love with a Buddhist priest. After he spurned her, she studied magic, transformed herself into a dragon, and killed him. Inscribed on the piece are different parts of a geisha’s wardrobe: geta (the shoes worn with a kimono), obi (the sash), tabi (split toed socks worn with geta), furisode (a kimono worn by an unmarried woman), and mofuku (a black mourning kimono). “L/R” refers to the custom of always wrapping the left side over right unless dressing a corpse. The interior shows a real Komodo dragon, unimpressed with being trivialized in Peter’s carving.