WABI SABI
ABI SABI
Wa
My work over the past thirty years has been, like my personality, in an evolving state. I am not the man I was at twenty-two and neither is my sculpture similar to those early works in concept or form. Yet, there are themes and philosophies that have remained with me and are evident in my sculptures from those early years to now. Reviewing my oeuvre it is evident to me that my work has been permeated by some synonymous underlying thoughts. It has taken time to mature as an artist and to realize in my work and my life the effects of these philosophies and themes on both.
My interest in reading about philosophy, history, science, and art have affected my production and my life. As we all are made of base constituent elements and experiences that have coalesced to form the individuals we are today, so it is with my work. I chose the title Wabi Sabi: East meets West for the name of my graduate exhibit because Wabi Sabi is one of those philosophies that has been persistent in my oeuvre.
Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic philosophy with a long history steeped in the tea ceremony but it is even older than that. It evolved out of a period of ostentatious and elaborate production of crafts and art that might be analogous to the western baroque period. It evolved as a rejection of that form of aesthetic into a taste for objects and style much more simple and rustic and natural. It was an acceptance of the natural order and the fact that all things are changing from a uniform to a chaotic state.
Wabi is a higher dimension of transcendent beauty arrived at by sublimating the outer ostentation and complexity of an object, or thought, to allow the inner, unpretentious beauty to surface. Wabi is no fan of excessive expression, but enjoys taciturnity, detests haughtiness and respects humility. Wabi is equated with a form of stark, austere beauty.
Sabi is the admiration or sense of pleasure one gets when viewing an irregular, asymmetrical form as opposed to a perfect form. Sabi speaks of the patina of the aged, the worn, and a surface that hints at an inner beauty. It is the pleasure we attain from seeing an old rusted automobile in a field of high grass as opposed to a long line of new cars in a parking lot.
Wabi Sabi then is esthetic pleasure I sense from the realization of a work that is marred by flaws, and whose surface is imperfect, and yet it instills in me a joy of accomplishment. I would rather stir my tea with a patinated , stained spoon than a highly polished silver spoon.
The Esthetic Experience: A Khipuz Survey of the Philosophy of Art
by Gerard J Kelly