In my photographic collection, “Storefront Wabi Sabi,” I hope to challenge myself and my understanding of Wabi Sabi.  Of course, I do not actually know what wabi sabi is.  Yet I feel that my photos for this project in West and Downtown Asheville approach the notion differently than much of Leonard Koren's diatribe.

I will make a few points about what I think should be acceptable wabi sabi grounds for contemporary artist photographers, in order to prevent the illusive aesthetic from fading into obscurity (perhaps as t'was intended like steam from a cup of tea).

Koren describes wabi sabi as incomplete, unconventional, and multi-dimensional.  While he makes the connections to the modern movement, I do not think he makes the full parallels to modern living and urban life that wabi sabi might capture in photography.  My photographs of reflections not only convey incomplete forms and illusive ideas and lighting, they also suggest the multidimensionality of the public space, the commercial space, and the all-encompassing natural world.

Instead of focusing on the natural signs of decay, like many of Koren's photographs, I tried to show the decay of lost memory, aging clothes, and unkempt displays.  When fully conceived, “human” subjects can become as objective as any rusted nail staining a board, and contribute to the aesthetics of a work that is a montage of the ages.

Wabi sabi tends to rely on natural colors to be a passive aesthetic and to blend in with its surroundings.  I propose that bold colors need to be propagated; clashes and chaotic crayola messes.  The original natural colors were intentionally chosen, and stuck for centuries, in objection to the palette of Chinese work.  Now that the natural palette appears in most homes and decorative art, wabi sabi needs to harness the bright organic colors that are also natural, but of course without intention.  That said I have limited my palette in just about every work, out of habitat, or the impossibility of safely using tremendous color everywhere, so be it.

I have also added a surreal and subtle humor to my photographs.  I think that nature has these qualities and entirely natural wabi sabi photographs demonstrate this.  They show emotion, tension, and especially the primary forces of birth and death.  In the commercial space, birth and death are pushed to the side.  The illusive beauty of wabi sabi, which teases the viewer with light humor, is strong in the store fronts of the city.  When one slows down the pace of urban life and stares at the reflections and the spaces created, it is a new and very peculiar creation.  Sometimes the effect of a wabi sabi photo cannot be pinned down, like a surrealist work, which might be linked to an unconscious reaction.  Many of these photos explore how wabi sabi and surrealism interact.

I still consider these photos to be rooted in my basic understanding of old school wabi sabi despite the new considerations.  I could not reinvent such a beautiful, decrepit wheel.  I believe that wabi sabi might most accurately describe the "Decisive Moment" Henri Cartier-Bresson when taking the perfect photo.  It certainly encapsulates the way I feel and the reasons I have always had for releasing the shutter.

Koren says that "Wabi Sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the freedom we get from things."  These photos find this wabi sabi in the unnatural urban setting, hovering on the storefront glass, the site of eye candy and its obscure release.