The materials used are organic, not polished or cleaned or adulterated to appear new or contrived. Wood, metal, paper, textiles, stone, and clay comprise acceptable materials which will express the passage of time and whose devolution is expressive and attractive.
FORM
The object is shaped naturally or organically. Form is not imposed by human contrivance but subtly intervenes to make the object follow the capabilities and relevant physical characteristics, properties, and propensities of its own nature. Above all, the work is itself, not a symbol of anything.
TEXTURE
In keeping with the material used, the texture remains rough, uneven, variegated, and random, with every appearance of pursuing an unimpeded natural process.
BEAUTY
The Western standard of beauty does not find a place in wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi presses the absolute nature of permeability in the visual and sensual, so that the fragility and poignancy of conventional beauty lost in the passage of time is made real in the present space. The object reveals this different sense of beauty in subtle and even barely perceptible detail.
The wabi-sabi artist does not intend the viewer to "abstract" anything. Wabi-sabi is a holistic experience, and objects derive their beauty from the emotion conveyed, not from any particular detail of the work. In this latter sense, beauty is more easily conveyed in the experience of literature, theater, or ceremony than are some of the other principles.
COLOR
Colors are muted. Light is diffused or subdued. Colors are derived from natural sources, lacking uniformity or harshness.
SIMPLICITY
Simplicity conveys the spontaneity of natural materials that are not or cannot be embellished. Lack of adulteration and ostentation confirms the authenticity of the work and its conformity to the wabi-sabi spirit.
BALANCE
The work reflects the physical balances found in the natural world. This balance as circumstance is a design principle for the artist to infuse into a work. The work, like the tree, is unique. The regularity, uniformity, and prescriptions contrived by the artist are secondary to the requirement to reflect a natural and unforced appearance to the object and its context.
SOBRIETY
Sobriety is the simple principle that art is sometimes better defined by what is left out than by what is put in. Sobriety adds a sense of perspective to the experience of impermanence. The artist approaches creative work with humility, sincerity, and a clarification of motives.
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