Wabi-sabi is a fabulously vague concept that means a myriad of things to many different people. So much so, in fact, that it’s very hard to find any kind of agreement on what objects are (or invariably aren’t) wabi-sabi. And as any real definition is equally unforthcoming, it’s all down to feelings rather than facts.
The kind of feeling it turns out that my mother-in-law immediately got from the scene below.
Yet while I can see where she’s coming from, to me it’s simply beautiful. An ambiguity, along with its very personal preferences, that in many ways makes the notion of wabi-sabi even more wonderful.
