Los Angeles-based couple Chrissy Leavell and Micheal Armendariz, have a collective eye sharper than a magpie. Both wildly curious of life and its offerings, the pair have a non-stop will to see new things. These subtle investigations, spurred on by their love of cinema and sound, lead Chrissy and Michael to interesting locations, with an alluring cast of people and objects bathed in fantasy. Chrissy and Michael share their pieced-together stories, both told and imagined, surrounding a solid silver cigar box and a handmade acoustic guitar.

The thought of knowing nothing about an object, placing your own meaning and purpose to it, and finding out someone else did not use it that way at all, breaks the restriction we all can experience daily. We see things and know what they are meant for, and can rarely strip this preconceived ideas to reinvent our own. I am enamoured by this thought, as simple as it is, and I’m reminding myself to apply this to everything and anything.

My dad had heard me plucking the strings, grabs the guitar from me and begins to tune it. At the time it was missing a couple strings but he made-do. He then played song after song, my eyes so wide they must have been dirt dry.

My grandfather tells us how he made two guitars while serving time in prison; a story to be told. In Old English he initialed EMN & RVN near the neck and bridge of the face; Emilia Moreno Navarro & Raymond Villa Navarro. Emillia was my grandmother’s name.