Category: Events

As the year closes, we invite you to join us in the annual Release Ritual. It is simple. On the final evening of December, gather in a quiet room with a cup of tea and one object you no longer need. Hold it. Thank it. Place it on the edge of a table.

Then wait. Breathe. When the moment is right, let your cat decide. It may take a minute. It may take an hour. At some point, a paw will rise, and the object will go, and the room will be changed.

The new year is a blank shelf. We hope you leave it that way, for at least four minutes, before something lands on it.

On the last Saturday of September we celebrate Pen Cup Liberation Day, a festival honoring the humble desk accessory and the multitudes it contains. Every pen in a pen cup is a promise. Most are dry. All must be freed.

This year, 140 clients brought their pen cups to the Mantel Studio. We tipped each one, slowly, with a paw, and watched the pens roll across the wooden floor, a river of plastic and brass and dried ink. A child clapped. A man wept. A pencil, long forgotten, rolled under a cabinet and was not seen again.

Next year we plan to expand the event to staplers. Master Oolong has already started to meditate on it.