The Art of Wabi-Sabi

The Japanese tradition of wabi-sabi offers you a refreshing new way to look at your home, and your whole life. Broadly speaking, wabi-sabi is everything that you won't find in today's sleek, mass-produced, tech-savvy world. It is flea markets as opposed to shopping malls; aged wood over new-age floor coverings; a single stem instead of a dozen red roses. 

Wabi-sabi understands the raw beauty of a grey, overcast landscape and the elegance of an abandoned building or shed. It recognizes cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time and weather and use leave behind. To discover wabi-sabi is to see the beauty in something that may, at first glance, look decrepit and ugly.

You can begin an appreciation of wabi-sabi with a single item from the back of your closet, a chipped vase, or a faded piece of cloth. Look at it closely and explore it with your hands to see the minute details that give it character. You don't have to understand why you're drawn to it, just accept it as it is.