Sushi Platter Ornament

Of the sushi gifts this studio makes, the Sushi Platter Ornament ranks as the most literal: a slate-dark board just under five inches across carrying a single row of pieces set end to end along its length, with a green dab and a pale mound at one end. It is the widest thing in the food range and only about an inch and three-quarters from top to bottom, which makes it a horizontal object in a category that is otherwise almost entirely vertical. Nothing on it is the feature. The board itself is built last, sized to whatever the pieces actually came out as that day, so the row sits flush against it rather than floating above it. My brother Merle has ordered the same thing every time for a decade. TIFF is a handful of days in September attached to a building that runs all year, and those days get the photographs, which is roughly the relationship between the pieces on this board and the board holding them up.