wabi sabi

wabi sabi

If you've been here long, you'll know I find this concept fascinating and helpful as I think about my quilts.  Whole Living has an article on Wabi Sabi this month (thanks to Pat Sloan for pointing this out!)  Luckily, the text is available online (click here).

I don't agree with everything that Roberts says.  As one commenter on the article wrote, the article has some half-truths and misunderstandings, such as when Roberts suggests that failing to clean up after her child is wabi sabi.  The commenter says,  "clean the fingerprints and, as you do, appreciate the uneven texture of the wall. Then you will be practicing wabi sabi. Leave the dirt on your wall and you are simply making an excuse for laziness." I agree.

Also, Roberts's assertion that, "Nothing about nature is linear or symmetrical or impervious to decay," makes me think she failed a lot of science classes. 

Regardless, it is an interesting read.



To me, wabi sabi cannot result from laziness or neglect or a desire to be imperfect, but rather a different way of thinking about what perfect is and a desire to work with nature rather than against it. 


To me, the shed above is not wabi sabi, it is run down.  But imagine if the boarded up windows were  given new glass and the flora was trimmed back...then the variations in the tin and the slight waver in the roofline would be beautiful and the shed would be wabi sabi. 


I have looked at the books mentioned in the article, including Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers and The Wabi-Sabi House  though I prefer this children's book Wabi Sabi  and have been trying to sort out what book or articles (if any) they use in Japanese Studies programs because I suspect  that they wouldn't have the weird Western framing that continually makes false binaries of perfect/imperfect  maintained/neglected symmetrical/natural. 
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