Happy Cat Hollow

There is a particular kind of cheerful, round-faced cat that turns up all over Japanese homeware, and this is that animal rendered as a hollow open form: a sitting cat with a broad grin and a scooped-out body, so the creature itself becomes the container. It is a small shelf piece rather than a statement sculpture. Somewhere for keys and coins by the front door, hair clips on a bedroom shelf, pens beside a laptop, or a handful of dried stems and grasses if you want something softer on a windowsill. The face does the work; from across the room it reads as a happy cat, and close up it is still doing a job. It gifts well, too, being cheerful enough for a child's room and restrained enough that nobody minds it on the kitchen counter.