Tracelessness is limitless clear white light. A linear, illuminative scent, at once empty and full. A lightswitch for the sun. Complex, yet transparent, Tracelessness is idiosyncratic and free from word-smells.
Find samples, with free shipping HERE.
Receive a credit of $12 toward a 50 mL bottle with the purchase of a sample (see product page for details)
Kire-tsuzuki or 'cut continue' is often exemplified by the discontinuous continuum of breathing – the 'cut' between the exhale and inhale instills the simple fact that each exhale could be the last. This trope is often used in Japanese aesthetics and famously used by Hakuin, the Zen Master, whose teaching implores that we must be cut from the root of life in order to "see into one's own nature".
The dry landscape garden at Ryoan-ji is arranged within a large rectangle of raked gravel and bordered first with stone and moss before abutting a low earthen wall with a small pitched roof. The wall acts both as a cut and a continuum, because the scenery on the far side of the wall is borrowed by the dry landscape. Within the rectangle, the sand and 15 various sized stones exist within their 'own' stillness and suspended timeframe, compared to the borrowed scenery that moves within the patterns of nature. The borrowed scenery is vital, as the deceptive permanency of the dry landscape alone would communicate only part of the whole.
Ikebana, which translates literally to "making flowers live", is a revelation – to cut the flower from the root demonstrates the illusion of the flower's seemingly permanent nature within the earth and exposing it instead, in its pure untethered form.
The cultivation and burning of a stick of incense follows these same kire-tsuzuki aesthetics. The natural materials are grown, cut, and composed into sticks that, like the dry landscape gardens, defy time and apparent material degradation. To burn incense, wherever you choose to do so, a unique interplay between the incense and borrowed scenery arises. As the ember chases its way down the stick, a suspended rush of fragrance is released – emitting the true essence of the woods, the flowers, and the resins that once grew; rooted in earth in distant forests. A cut and a continuum, the past histories of these exotic botanicals are released with wavering smoke into nothingness.
As a brand we utilize the Munsell Color System, especially their system for neutral greys, as the foundation for our aesthetic color choices. This system, first developed by Albert Henry Munsell in the late 19th century, organizes color via hue, value, and chroma, arranged into scales of equal perceptual intervals. This system created the ability to have totally neutral greys that would enhance the interaction between a colored object and the neutral grey background, allowing for the ability to see color in a more pure form. Our eyes perceive color in a phenomenom known as simultaneous contrast. When two colors are placed beside each other they interact and influence each other. Munsell Greys allow for perfectly neutral foundations from which to enhance the chosen color.
By considering IDLE as a neutral foundation, we look to provide the potential for an experience that is fully realized in each instance. An experience that precedes the differentiation between subject experiencing and object experienced in what Kitaro Nishida described as 'Pure Experience', or that whichs forms or realizes the individual.
While some of our design presentation may seem boring, it is a calculated decision on our part, and one that we hope translates into higher caliber experience for our customers.
Years ago, we found a mysterious object on the shelf of a recently deceased physics professor at an estate sale. It was 8 connected links that mathmatically moved around in the hands to create Buckminster Fuller tetrahedron-ish shapes.
The kinetic sculpture was originally designed by Paul Schatz in 1929, who's much more famous discovery was the Oloid, made in the same year. We aren't sure if there were any mass produced sculptures made after the discovery, or if it wasn't until 1975 when Flowerday Designs of England patented the design and began manufacturing an 8-segment 'Octyflex' sculpture and a 6-segment 'Hexyflex' iteration. A Flowerday Designs box from that time describes the sculpture as, "elegant geometric objects that you move and change in pleasing and surprising ways." They even managed to snag a quote from Buckminster Fuller for the back of the box, "I am extremely enthusiastic about the Octyflex."
From the now expired 1974 patent application explaining the design:
There is disclosed a manipulative toy in the form of a linkage containing an even number of at least six links, each of which links comprises a central limb with two end limbs projecting one from each end thereof in planes mutually perpendicular to one another, each end limb of each link being journalled alongside an end limb of an adjacent link so as to pivot generally coaxially therewith and enable the linkage to be successively turned inside out through a position in which it defines a planar polygon, in which position half the journalled pairs of limbs stand perpendicular to the plane of the polygon at each vertex thereof whilst the remaining journalled pairs of limbs lie in the plane of the polygon and project from the mid points of the sides of the polygon towards the centre thereof.
We noticed a trail of Octyflex and Hexyflex sculptures across the internet, but couldn't see any in current production. In an attempt to breath life back into this useless design object, we set out to see if we could make our own variation. Instead of chrome plated wire, we made our version from stainless steel and added vinyl endcaps to each internal segment so that object rotates and flexes in a more satisfying way.
Taken from the Flowerday patent description of the object, we decided to call it 'Vortex Linkages' and are pleased that we can offer you this entirely useless object that hopefully does nothing more than quiet your mind.
