A blessing, renewed every year

Each year, monks visit Original Thai House to perform a blessing ceremony for the studio and everyone who works there. It follows the same form used across Thailand: offerings of food and flowers, chanting, and a sacred thread (sai sin) tied from the monks' hands to bind the blessing to the place and the people in it.

This isn't staged for guests -- it's a private tradition the founder brought with her from Thailand, continued here in Porches for the same reason it's kept anywhere: to ask for good fortune, protection, and right intention for the year ahead. We photograph it the way a family photographs any yearly occasion, not as marketing.