Lately I've been reading
Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers. It is an incredibly thoughtful book - beautifully crafted and highly relevant. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic that refers to the beauty of the imperfect, the incomplete, and the intimate. There is a marvelous section in the middle of the book:
"Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness. As dusk approaches in the hinterlands, a traveler ponders shelter for the night. He notices tall rushes growing everywhere, so he bunches an armful together as they stand in the field, and knots them at the top. Presto, a living grass hut. The next morning, before embarking on another day's journey, he unknots the rushes and presto, the hut de-constructs, disappears, and becomes a virtually indistinguishable part of the larger field of rushes once again. The original wilderness seems to be restored, but minute traces of the shelter remain. A slight twist or bend in a reed here and there. There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler - and in the mind of the reader reading this description. Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealized form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the borders of nothingness." (Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers, page 42)
I am fascinated by that notion of "delicate traces...at the borders of nothingness." Especially in a shared studio space, the walls and floor are inscribed with this "faint evidence"; it's an inscription of existence, a capturing of something ephemeral and long-gone, yet still remembered. The inherent impermanence of all things is directly related to the wabi-sabi aesthetic; I find a strange sort of comfort in the knowledge that change is inevitable, that nothing lasts forever, and that in these fleeting moments we have the ability to truly be present, both within ourselves and with each other.
