What is Wabi Sabi?
“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 growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all…It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It’s a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious… It’s the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea. My favorite Japanese phrase for describing wabi-sabi is “natsukashii furusato,” or an old memory of my hometown. via: http://www.nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm
“What is wabi sabi? Ask a Japanese this question and there will likely be a long silence. Pose the same question to an American, however, the answer will often be quick and sure: “It’s beauty of things imperfect!” Why do the Japanese struggle for an answer to the meaning of wabi sabi that seems to come easily to Westerners? Could they be searching for a different answer altogether?
“Translation,” wrote Kakuzo Okakura, author of the classic The Book of Tea, “can at best be only the reverse side of a brocade, – all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of color or design.” Few examples illustrate this better than the Japanese concept of wabi sabi. Westerners tend to associate wabi sabi with physical characteristics – imperfection, crudeness, an aged and weathered look, etc. Although wabi sabi may encompass these qualities, these characteristics are neither sufficient nor adequate to convey the essence of the concept. Wabi sabi is not rigidly attached to a list of physical traits. Rather, it is a profound aesthetic consciousness that transcends appearance. It can be felt but rarely verbalized, much less defined. Defining wabi sabi in physical terms is like explaining the taste of a piece of chocolate by its shape and color to someone who has never tasted it. As long as one focuses on the physical, one is doomed to see only the back side of the brocade, while its real beauty remains hidden. In order to see its true essence, one must look beyond the apparent, one must look within.
Wabi sabi is not a style defined by superficial appearance. It is an aesthetic ideal, a quiet and sensitive state of mind, attainable by learning to see the invisible, paring away what is unnecessary, and knowing where to stop.”
via: http://www.touchingstone.com/Wabi_Sabi.html
via: http://www.ivillage.com/files/et/gardening/blogs/HF_wabi_sabi_column.gif
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In Search of Wabi Sabi
A documentary across Japan to explore the meaning of Wabi Sabi
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In order to experientially explore the feeling and/or state of mind evoked by the wabi sabi, I have decided to take a look around my backyard and photograph images that seem to evoke this feeling in me. It is largely a process of allowing myself to be moved through intuitive seeing. Especially in our culture of glitz and glamour and plastic and neon and all of those other things which simultaneously excite and extinguish our sensitivity, I believe this wabi sabi way of seeing and being in the world will help me to slow down, and to really appreciate the natural world around me in a whole new way. It informs an ecological and therefore holistic view of myself in relation to the world.
Eco Art Land 
