Wabi Sabi .... 'A way of Seeing' (2) by Thea Bouwman

How to articulate the meaning of the Japanese lifestyle 'Wabi Sabi'. It is not that simple. Because if you ask any Japanese person what is at the heart of this philosophy of life, there is a good chance you will not get a concrete answer.

Wabi Sabi has everything to do with the imperfect, the incomplete, the impermanent. And not in a negative sense, but in the opposite sense: Wabi Sabi emphasises the beauty of the impermanent: an iron fence that becomes rusty and weathered over the years acquires its own beauty. And precisely this beauty, the beauty of learning to see and appreciate something that decays, rusts or withers, is at the heart of the concept of Wabi Sabi: It is about the power of the imperfect.

For instance, when you put a fresh bunch of tulips in the vase, you might enjoy the bright colours immensely. Butrrr ... wait a few days ... when the tulips finish flowering, a new beauty emerges: the calyxes fade, the petals fall off and look: together those petals form a new painting on the tablecloth.

Wabi Sabi' says: something incomplete, something unfinished, in which transience becomes visible, can also be very beautiful.

So Wabi Sabi is a way of looking and has to do with the beauty of that which is unfinished, that which perishes and also that which comes into being 'by chance'.

With this idea, this concept, I went to work and played with melted paraffin and oil pastels, with water colours and ink. Bister also came into play: an ink, a brown earthy colour, based on the bark of walnuts. Letting the paraffin wax and ink do its thing created shapes and marks, lines and colours.

A perfect picture was certainly not created, but a new reality of lines, stains and colours.
What a relief it is to realise that everything imperfect can radiate immense beauty.

Wabi Sabi ... A way of seeing!