the wabi-sabi connection

I've just read through the very small booklet 'Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, & Philosophers' by Leonard Koren. It's a small book, able to be read in a single sitting, but it contains some absolute gems that resonate with my practice and my present project that its worth quoting some parts of the booklet in full here...

Wabi-Sabi is the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of what we think of as traditional Japanese beauty.....wabi-sabi can in its fullest expression be a way of life. At the very least, it is a particular type of beauty (21)

The initial inspirations for wabi-sabi's metaphysical, spiritual , and moral principles come from ideas about simplicity, naturalness, and acceptance of reality found in Taoism and Chinese Zen Buddhism. (31)

Wabi refers to:

* a way of life, a spiritual path,
* the inward, the subjective
* a philosophical construct
* spatial events

Sabi refers to:

* material objects, art and literature
* the outward, the objective
* an aesthetic ideal
* temporal events" (23)

The Wabi-Sabi Universe

Wabi-Sabi can be called a "comprehensive" aesthetic system. Its world view, or universe, is self-referential. It provides an integrated approach to the ultimate nature of existence (metaphysics) sacred knowledge (spirituality), emotional well-being (state of mind), behavior (morality), and the look and feel of things (materiality). The more systematic and clearly defined the components of an aesthetic system are - the more conceptual handles, the more ways it refers back to fundamentals - the more useful it is. (41)

Metaphysical Basis - Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness

Spiritual Values - Truth comes from the observation of nature; "Greatness" exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details; Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness


Moral Precepts - get rid of all that is unnecessary; Focus on the intrinsic and ignore material hierarchy

Material Qualities - The suggestion of natural process; Irregular; Intimate; Unpretentious; Earthy; Murky; Simple" (40-41)



all things are impermanent - The inclination toward nothingness is unrelenting and universal. Even things that have all the earmarks of substance = things that are hard, inert, solid - present nothing more than the illusion of permanence. We may wear blinders, use ruses to forget, ignore, or pretend otherwise - but all comes to nothing in the end. Everything wears down. The planets and stars, and even intangible things like reputation, family heritage, historical memory, scientific theorems, mathematical proofs, great art and literature (even in digital form) - all eventually fade into oblivion and nonexistence. (48-49)

all things are imperfect. Nothing that exists is without imperfections... Every craftsman knows the limits of perfection: the imperfections glare back. And as things begin to break down and approach the primordial state, they become even less perfect, more irregular. (49)

all things are incomplete. All things, including the universe itself, are in a constant, never-ending state of becoming or dissolving. Often we arbitrarily designate moments, points along the way, as "finished" or "complete". But when does something's destiny finally come to fruition? Is the plant complete when it flowers? When it goes to seed? When the seeds sprout? When everything turns into compost? (49-50)

get rid of all that is unnecessary. Wabi-sabi means treading lightly on the planet and knowing how to appreciate whatever is encountered, no matter how trifling, whenever it is encountered. (59)

the suggestion of natural process. Things wabi-sabi are expression of time frozen. They are made of material that are visibly vulnerable to the effects of weathering and human treatment. They record the sun, wind, rain, heat, and cold in a language of discoloration, rust, tarnish, stain, warping, shrinking, shriveling, and cracking... Though things wabi-sabi may be on the point of dematerialization (or materialization) - extremely faint, fragile, or dessicated - they still possess an undiminished poise and strength of character. (62)

intimate. Things wabi-sabi are usually small and compact, quiet and inward-oriented, They beckon: get close, touch, relate. They inspire a reduction of the psychic distance between one thing and another thing; between people and things. Place wabi-sabi are small, secluded, and private environments that enhance one's capacity for metaphysical musings. (67)

simple. Simplicity is at the core of things wabi-sabi. Nothingness, of course is the ultimate simplicity. But before and after nothingness, simplicity is not so simple... The simplicity of wabi-sabi is probably best described as the state of grace arrived at by a sober, modest, heart-felt intelligence. (71-72)

This is actually a good place to start to talk about what I've been reading and considering within my practice, project and exegesis research..... as all the points I've carefully quoted in full above find a ready example in my current work.

Over recent months I've been digesting a great deal of writings in and around pragmatic philosophy (primarily as espoused by John Dewey, but also recent re-interpretations of his advocacy for 'life as art', by Shusterman and Sartwell.....) As I've read, I've began to envisage how pragmatism may be used as a connector for the disparate elements in my current project, and as a counter-point to deconstructionist theory/philosophy (and post-modernism in general) that I see as the antithesis of my praxis. The more I've read of pragmatism the more I've found parallels to Zen ..... and the more I'm envisaging parallels with permaculture ...... it's in this context that I'm re-imagining my exegesis.



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ice work

Working in the creek last week was not all wallabies and wombats (and definitely not donkeys!) - I was really down there to set up this piece....

It's a large ice block containing a smaller encyclopeadia at the centre of the block (it was actually tricker than I first thought to freeze a book in a block of ice... but I was really determined to freeze a book in water gathered from my creek - even if I was unsure what the next stage of the work may be - so the book ice block has been sitting in my chest freezer for the past couple of months while I worked out what needed to happen next). I had an epiphany about what to do next as I was walking around the property: of course the creek water needed to be returned to the creek....

I set the piece up early in the morning on a rock in the middle of the sams creek and intended to take pics as the piece slowly melted, the ice melt joined sams creek (taking a little bit of the book knowledge with it perhaps?) and the book was released from the block of ice.

I had no idea what might happen as the ice melted (would the whole thing slide off the rock early in the melt? melt on one side more than the other? melt from the top down? bottom up? and how long would it take for the book to break free of the ice?)

Welllllll it took a LOT longer than I anticipated for the ice to melt - something I shouldn't have been surprised by really, given the size of the block and that it's late winter here at sams creek... the above pic was actually taken in the middle on the following day....

and then by early afternoon on day two....

... there was the book - resting easily on the rock.


All in all it was not what I thought was going to happen (not that I had a clear idea of what might happen...) - nor was the experience totally predictable.... whilst I waited and waited and watched and waited for my book to emerge drip by drip, I spent time closely exploring the immediate area. The creek had changed dramatically some months earlier after a series of dramatic floods so it was a great opportunity to relearn this creek that has been a constant feature for the length of my life. I listened to the small wrens and finches (and traffic thundering over the sams creek bridge some 300m away) not coincidentally I also read from Crispin Sartwell's 'The Art of Living' - his take on art as experience felt absolutely the right book to be reading whilst making a work that at its core is about interaction and experience...






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never work with children or animals....

Whilst working in the creek last week I had a visitor....

Swamp Wallabies are a common sight down by my creek - Sams Creek acts as a valuable wildlife corridor, linking the Kooraban and Gulaga National Parks (and more!) to the Batemans Marine Park - and isolated populations of all creatures are able to mix and move with relative ease and safety. Generally Sams Creek is a reliable water source (not so during the worst drought recorded - 18 months ago my creek ran dry for the first time in European settlement - good rains in February this year meant my creek has returned - albeit in with a very different look - one I'm still learning)

but I digress

whilst I was moving to and from the house up the hill one swamp wallaby made its presence known...

and I thought its appearance and gift to me deserved a return gift...

In the spirit of my previous wombat interactions, I decided to gift the swamp wallaby an encyclopaedia opened to the entry on kangaroo (sub-section wallaby)

I think of this as a reverse of my wombat work (that time I was acting as the initiator of the interaction) in this case the wallaby 'spoke' first..... and quite definitively too I must say....


(sigh..... all the world's a critic...)


....

down in the creek....

(art) life has not been all donkeys - I've been working on a couple of things down in sams creek..... I'll reveal what I've been doing in the next short while...(right now the work is still very much in progress)

donkey

Sick and tired of all the electioneering in the lead up to the oz elections this past w.e. I decided to take to the streets of cobargo with a little bit of subversive arrrrt. My paste up of a few hundred newspaper cut-out donkeys certainly cheered me up..... even if most of the town folk were left scratching their heads.....

funnily enough the action has proved quite therapeutic, as I've found myself bogged down by philosophic reading and exegesis writing of late..... sometimes it's good to let go and just have a bit of silly fun.....




read more here




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loooooooong books...... looooong time.....

I have completed another very very very loooooooong coptic bound book structure.....

This one is created from an entire (15 volume) set of childcraft annuals from the 1970s - the final book size is 2.7m (109 inches) 'long' (technically it's 2.7m WIDE..... but I'm not going to try explaining that to non booky people....) I started this piece back in June with this and have blogged in a general way about the whole piece at art and etc in a post title 'I think therefore... I bind'

I'm really pleased with this one.... I think it's the nicest one of my 'serpens volumen' or snake books.

In fact, I so enjoy the process of making these that I intend starting off another looooong book..... and as I like the colour gradation (an indication of my obsessive need to sort?) in this latest book, I think I'd like to find another collection of colourful pages to bind...... I rather like the idea of binding an entire set of encyclopaedias in this manner..... maybe it's time to check my collection for a contender....

I like the idea that I may be working on one or another of these loooong books for the duration of my research project...... (I can readily imagine the myriad ways these may be arranged singularly or together)

I've long appreciated the role these (and other obsessively 'crafted' objects) play in my practice - I am very much a process-oriented artist.... and now I'm understanding that I can use making as a sort of meditation.

I have been swamped over the last few months by research reading - most particularly with philosophy - and am currently trying to find my way through various ideas about Pragmatism (especially as espoused by John Dewey and then how his ideas have subsequently been interpreted and critically reviewed) I suspect somewhere in pragmatic philosophy is a way to move around my dissatisfaction with what I so nicely refer to as $%#@-french-deconstructionist-philosophers!

maybe its just wishful thinking, but I'm hoping that I may find a way of using pragmatism (be it from Dewey, or neo-pragmatism or Zen pragmatic philosophy) to connect the various parts of my project (books and land and permaculture and knowledge and...)

in the meantime I can see a lot of loooong books resulting from my loooooooooong time contemplating all this and more....





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draft plan of the exegesis

Over the past week and a bit I've been starting to nut out a draft plan of my exegesis for codex infiniutum....  and of course that has meant much reading and re-reading of research bits to date and lots of hand wringing and sighing.....

Writing is not one of my strongest skills!