The idea of Wabi-Sabi is deeply engrained in Japanese culture. It is the concept of finding beauty in imperfection and embracing the natural world, as it is.
Take a broken bowl or piece of pottery, for instance. The Japanese repair this with gold and it becomes even more beautiful than the original.
"Broadly, wabi-sabi is everything that today’s sleek, mass-produced, technology-saturated culture isn’t. It’s flea markets, not shopping malls; aged wood, not swank floor coverings; one single morning glory, not a dozen red roses. Wabi-sabi understands the tender, raw beauty of a gray December landscape and the aching elegance of an abandoned building or shed. It celebrates cracks and crevices and rot and all the other marks that time and weather and use leave behind. To discover wabi-sabi is to see the singular beauty in something that may first look decrepit and ugly."
Do you find beauty in imperfection, also?
My life is broken, someone pour some gold into the cracks.
I like the repurposing aspect of Wabi-Sabi. Form follows function.
Yes I do.... I got a (beautiful because it works)zero turn lawn mower that's ugly... I love that mower... and that ugly push mower and ugly weed eater and our youngest dog is ugly. I love all of them. Lol..... I'm going to stop right here.
I prefer the macabre and chilling aesthetic. Wabi-sabi falls right in there for me. I like things with a patina, history and character.
“Blessed are those with cracks in their broken heart because that is how the light gets in.”
Much rather have an old worn piece than a brand new piece of crap. Aesthetically.
for that reason i also prefer living in old buildings to modern, new ones.
Absolutely!, it takes up to three years of wear and tear for my wrangler jeans to become beautiful!
sounds like the life cycle of a butterfly to me
That bowl is beautiful.
I've worked in clay/small-scale sculpture and building various things with reclaimed barn wood.
The old, worn, rustic look is very easy on the eyes as far as I'm concerned.
@silvereyes lol No, I'm not a very big fan of the bleached out longhorn cattle skulls.
24/7... perfect is too completed to be useful.
The universal is an idealization, it is the conception of beauty as perfection. Leaving an imperfection in place, makes a work of art particular, a particular whose beauty is superior because it is not an idealization, instead it becomes the universal particular.
I readily enjoy the minimalism of this, even how few things are arranged bring value such as flower displays.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There is inherent beauty in everything and everyone in the world. You just have to have the open mind to see it and accept it all.
I agree 100%!
i decided a while ago that in order to stay sanely confident at my age, i'll have to start embracing imperfection. not sure yet whether i'll fill my facial creases with gold though.
@silvereyes, yes, totally agree - couldn't afford the 24k moisturizer anyway
Interesting read with 2 other parts.
@silvereyes - For those who might want to link to it directly.
I had to think about this. I was tiling the shower with foot square tiles. I accidentally stepped on one and broke it in 3 pieces, damn. Later I as doing the splash back for the sink and thought I would do a collage of left over pieces. A brain fart hit me and I used the piece I stepped on, added a small additional piece and, WA-la a neat center piece. In construction and art Wabi-Sabi can offer an unplanned surprise.
@silvereyes I have become a master at making something out of screw-ups. I have to as I screw-up a lot.
I was the only woman in a skillcentre of 400 men all of us learning different trades I was learning plastering and we had our own set of quarters away from all the others -of course tiling is part of the course as is cornice moulding laying screeds for floors etc. and learning how to plaster a squash court.
when it came to tiling we had to make patterns with small pieces as we were learning to cut different shapes - I loved it!
@jacpod I love it when a women gets into some sort of "man's" area. I was tiling my sunroom but had never worked with thin set for floors. My neighbor's daughter offered to help as she had done this. We did it together and it turned out beautifully.
@silvereyes Thanks, you motivate me to take a picture of it and add it to my collection.