The Wabi-Sabi Aesthetic

I began creating my current body of work in 2012. I have appreciated the ancient Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-Sabi for some time before that creating mobiles and other small artwork from found objects and natural elements, including creating valentines for my wife, two daughters and my two granddaughters. A few years before 2012 I had the idea to create those valentines with the Wabi-Sabi aesthetic which led me to the concept for my more ambitious sculptures.

Here are a few of valentines I created for them through the years. I like creating the free-standing ones and wall ones about equally. With the free-standing pieces there is the opportunity to use both sides.

This first one is a small piece.

Here are two wall valentines.

This next one says, ‘You own the key to my heart”.

This next one is cool because I made coiled steel at the top.  Then I colored some watercolor paper and wrote an intimate note to my sweetheart and place it in the coil.

Another wall piece.

You can see in a lot of the work that I use patinaed copper pieces.  I cut out the shapes from a sheet of copper and patina it, then seal the patina on the copper so it won’t rub off.

Here are some of the patina hearts, when I create these, I typically create several of them at a time. When I use them on a Valentine, I carve out the shape for one, so it fits right in.

This next Valentine is quite large. The arrow is about 48 inches in length.  The feathered end was created using thick copper wire. The pointed end is a large oyster shell.

These next three valentines are pretty darn cool. The long pieces are created from 1x 2-inch pine and 36 inches long. I carved them by hand and painted them with acrylic paint.  Then what I think is coolest part is Cupid’s arrow I attached to the side.  They display on the wall really well.

This last valentine might be my favorite. The steel coil holds an intimate love note to my wife. A nice big patinaed copper heart on the one side also. I initially intended to place three other patinaed hearts where the three red ones are but after carving the shapes into the wood, I realized painting them in with red was a better idea. As I work, I try to remain flexible and not hold myself to any preconceived ideas so rigidly that I miss out on a better inspiration that pops up.

Thanks for reading this post.