"The Japanese have a word which summariz- es all the best in Japanese life, yet it has no explanation and cannot be translated. It is the word shibui, and the best approximation to it’s meaning is 'acerbic good taste’. Another attempt to define the concept of shibui refers to a made object that is beautiful by being precisely what it was meant to be and not elaborated upon.” -James Michener, Iberia "Wabi-sabi is the most conspicuous and char- acteristic feature of traditional Japanese beau- ty and it occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and perfection in the West".
"If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be Wabi-sabi." "[Wabi-sabi] nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: noth- ing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect." -Leonard Koren, Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
Don’t confuse what you make with who you are… or perhaps that is exactly what one should work toward? “An object, par excellence, freezes time. It is perpetually in the present. Even as it tells us of its history, shares its craft, and engages us perceptually. It holds the moment suspended. It is not a moment divorced from the past or from the future, but it is a moment in the objects own time. It is a moment in which the splitting of consciousness can disappear and, miracle of miracles, the two-ness of the person plus the object can produce a feeling of one- ness in the person.” -Dennis Leon, 1994 Glass Art Society Conference Key Note Address
“The Japanese view of life embraced a simple aesthetic that grew stronger as inessentials were eliminated and trimmed away.” - Tadao Ando, architect
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