Wabi-Sabi Pottery

 The Relationship Between Wabi-sabi and Pottery

A favorite piece that was soda fired

One never knows what will happen!

What is wabi-sabi? According to wikipedia~ wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete"

Missed a spot right in the middle

I did know this before it was fired

 

Astrid Auxier has written a wonderful treatise about wabi -sabi in relation to pottery. She mentions ‘…understanding its essence through the concept of tranquility, imperfection, and the appreciation of the temporal nature of all things.

This was originally the side of a vessel

There is a lot to consider in the appreciation of wabi-sabi. After making pottery myself for several years, I have gotten an offbeat idea about wabi-sabi and pottery.
How and why did the idea of embracing imperfection come about? It apparently started in relation to Japanese tea ceremonies and tea cups. And why is this? Well, according to me, it was figured out by a marketing genius! Pottery is inherently risky in so many ways. It can crack, it can become misshapen during firing, glazes can run, colors can be sadly (or happily) surprising. If you make pottery that is not production pottery or formulaic, you must come to accept that things will not turn out as you may have wanted, i.e. you must be willing to release your expectations and accept what happens. If you are soda firing, raku firing or wood firing, control of the finished glaze is not really in your hands.

Flew off the wheel; needed re-shaping

If the pottery is just 'wrong', what must you do with it? I give a lot of pottery away to friends or the neighborhood because I can only accept so much in the way of oddness and what I feel is ugly. But a lot of time, thought and work is put into all of those pieces too.
The marketing mastermind behind wabi-sabi thought ‘How can I make this work for me?’ By pointing out the errors, appreciating them and getting others to enjoy impermanence and imperfection of course. It worked a treat! The monks went along with it, and monks are never wrong. If the monks say it is a good thing then society must agree with them. After all, they have the inside track to enlightenment! And who doesn’t want enlightenment?

Soda fired piece~ well that was unexpected!

Is wabi-sabi simply an invention to make pottery errors acceptable so less of it ends up on the shard pile? Perhaps!