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wabi-sabi


I am off to the hills for a few days to participate in our annual staff retreat. I will be leading a three hour encaustic workshop and my jeep is heavy with supplies. I was reading last night, for inspiration and to prepare for my talk, when I came across "wabi-sabi". Not a new term, to be sure, but one I have overlooked due to the distortions to which it is often applied (you know the slovenly hippish stereotype brandishing the zen of imperfection while eating day old pizza). For those of you who don't know, wabi-sabi(not to be confused with the sushi condiment, wasabi!) is a Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience, as noted in the Three marks (impermanence, suffering and egolessness) of Zen Buddhism. The philosophical focus is on a beauty, which is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete- touched by the "bloom of time". Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of life and living in the process rather than for the product.
This philosophy neatly encapsulates my view of art. Art is a process of discovery made interesting by the hand of time, the inherent errors and imperfections of its source and the materials used for expression. I often hear people say, I am no artist... I want to yell and scream, to grab them by the hands and bellow "YES YOU ARE". Art is a process of seeing as well as something to be seen. People often compare themselves to Michelangelo and thus have failed before they begin anything. How much better to adopt a wabi-sabi approach and embrace our imperfections at the onset... finding beauty in the lines on our faces and the weathered hands wielding brush and paint. How much simpler to look deeply at the beauty within us and around us and to impart that beauty, however imperfectly, impermanently, incompletely, into the waiting world.
So wabi sabi to each of you and I'll post again soon.

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