My Strange Love of Wabi-Sabi

Every now and then, a client will tell me how they want their home to look, and I cringe, because they're describing a pristine museum-like set piece scenario. You and I both know the house. Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable. No oxygen left in the composition for laughter or old people or anyone who doesn't have perfect balance. No room for kids or dogs. No place to live. But many people insist on turning their houses into some kind of fetish that delivers a voyeuristic thrill -- rooms to look at, but that have little capacity for real life. The French call this look coince (accent on the e), which means wedged or jammed or stuck or cornered.

You can't dance in a corner. An over-decorated/accessorized space leaves little room to do anything but sit with knees pressed together -- an aesthetic that completely breaks down when your new housekeeper sprays Formula 409 on your premium art books, paintings and candles while you're out getting your vagina re-contoured.

"Perfect" interior décor can be captivating in photographs, but underlying the flawless arrangement of drapery, wallpaper and furnishings is a palpable fear of anticipation -- when will this mirage of a showroom become, you know, "used?"

When I finish a job for a client, I advocate beating the fear to the punch with... more fear. Instead of waiting for wear and tear to happen naturally, throw something imperfect into the tableau so the wait's over. Better yet, "drop" a glass of red wine onto the rug and then grind a little foie gras into the stain immediately, so that you can get it over with and start living. If a room isn't inviting, what's the point? Nevertheless, people still chase those perfect rooms. (Be careful, because you can't actually do it and it's no fun if you can.)

So it's a little incongruous that I found myself practicing interior design in LA -- Earth's bastion of hyper-personal grooming and size zeros cruising around with flutes of un-drunk champagne. The décor equivalent of this Angeleno would be a monochromatic white on white living room with blonde on blonde furnishings, everything lined up and relined up, all square, with cadres of cushions and pillows fluffed and dented, coffee table art books perfectly stacked into pyramids and never cracked. And walls mirrored to maximize the impact of perfection through infinity.

I never had to unlearn this style because I've never been fastidious, thank God. I've never let a warped floorboard ruin my life. My aesthetic yardstick is, and always has been, comfort. Who cares if the table tops are not quite true? If the scale of upholstered furniture is slightly off? If some turned table legs are cabriolet and others are claw and ball? Getting everything to match and conform seamlessly to some ideal of perfection was never an option for me. With my triple D rack and a penchant for Pinot Grigio and wearing heels and making wild hand mannerisms, I've been the recipient of the icy stare of any number of tightly wound hostesses. The horror in their eyes is real as I bump into a marble-topped commode, shivering a porcelain tchotchke.

Maybe it's the English in me. My parents lived through World War II and their credo was "You make do." People at every income level were making do during wartime. My father, 'til the end of his life, took rolls of two-ply loo paper and made them one ply rolls. Generations that went through war and deprivation understand that what's important is life, and not aesthetics. Patina is a word that people throw around, but it's real, in that it's earned and should really be appreciated. One of the reasons I always love rehabilitating "ruined" properties is because I will not obliterate the patina of age -- I honor it and respect it as a reminder of what's truly important: A house is really only a stage for your life and the lives of your loved ones.

There's beauty in survival. I've learned you can actually train your eye to appreciate the flaw, the injury and the repair. That's wabi-sabi -- embracing the imperfect and the impermanence of nature... and life. I have a casual familiarity with this Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it's static -- a snapshot in time -- and can never be a moving picture.

There is more beauty associated with letting nature, and inevitable decay, take its course. Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating a Grey Gardens way of life, where you let cats piss all over your portraits and raccoons have the run of the parlor. Disrepair can be taken to an extreme. Wabi-sabi should never be a rationalization to quit trying. But we all have to let some things go.

I love aesthetics as much as the next person, but don't let them crowd out your life -- don't prioritize aesthetic order over spontaneous afternoon delight on a newly upholstered sofa or having your geriatric neighbor cruise over for chocolate fondue. Have fun and appreciate aesthetics equally, along with good food, drink, relationships, mistakes and carelessness. Appreciate repair. In the end, we're all just stewards of property and we're aging right along with it.

 

Follow Kathryn M. Ireland on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KathrynMIreland

Comments

[JohnFred]

04:59 PM on 07/14/2011

I think MDD is the best reality show on TV today. I admit I am a design fanatic but it is more than that. The designers are all larger than life and fun to spend time with. That is,with the possible exception of the two pretty boys who think way too much of themselves, but that is all part of what makes it such a great show. It's a great eclectic mix. Who would want to actually spend time with any of the housewives or contestants on any of those other shows? The real estate salespeole and their clients on HGTV's New York real estate reality show prove that just having money does not make you interesting. The celeb and the non-celeb clients on MDD all pale in comparison to the designers and that's fine.

I have been seeing the names of the MDD folks in shelter magazines for years and I was always getting Kathryn M Ireland confused with Kathy Ireland - no more. Kathryn M Ireland is worthy of a show all to herself. I adore her big-titted plussized self and look forward to enjoying much more time with her, and her daffy French housekeeper and her dysfunctional family. Delighted to see her writing is just as fun as her video presence. If I lived in LA and I had a big house I would love her to be my designer and my BFF.

[Chad Wheeler]

06:54 PM on 07/14/2011

Last night when I watched MDD and saw that next week is the finale, I wondered how I would go on without it. I even love the pretty boys. Agree with you that a reality show about Kathryn Ireland would be great. She is living my ideal life and I adore her honest and quirky English style, both personal and design.

[sumogirl]

02:31 AM on 07/14/2011

Here it comes...wabi-sabi is officially going the way of feng shui now that the concept has been covered by the Huffington Post. Please do a little more thinking about wabi-sabi--not as a topic to write a few paragraphs about in an attempt to convince us that you understand what it is. I can't imagine--and have yet to read--a Japanese person write an article or blog posting about wabi sabi although perhaps some have probably done it. Wabi sabi can be seen and experienced in a so-called perfect white room because nothing is perfect. Wabi sabi is not shabby chic even though elements of shabby chic can certainly fall into such a non-category. I can tell you what it's not, but I can't tell you what it is. The concept of wabi sabi is more than appearances and a deliberately messed up mess. It's rooted in Zen Buddhism and the tea ceremony. I'm sorry if I come across as rude but I really think you--as an interior designer--are in a great position to try and understand a transcendental topic such as wabi sabi. Even if you don't understand it you have probably felt it. The more you see it (or don't see it) the less you will want to be tied to the physicality of objects. And the more you understand the less you will want to write about it. JMO

[Skilletlicker]

06:33 PM on 07/14/2011

Um, sumogirl, Ms. Ireland clearly states that she has only a "casual familiarity" with the Japanese aesthetic/philosophy. (The fact that she understands that wabi sabi is both an aesthetic AND a philosophy tells me that her familiarity is the taddest bit more than that.) She furthermore states that her "takeway" is to appreciate the transience of everything. So she took what she wanted and left the rest...no doubt to some Eastern philosophy professor at Tufts. She's an interior decorator, not an academic, who wrote a thoughtful and lovely piece about prioritizing aesthetics, and folded a passing reference to wabi sabi into it - a reference that in no way circumscribes the scope of her understanding of this "transcendental topic." The assumption that a Japanese person hasn't written about wabi sabi means what? That "they" know better than to write about it? That their understanding is so much more advanced that they don't need to write about it? That they're cooler than Ms. Ireland? The appeal to Ms. Ireland to "please do a little more thinking about wabi sabi" is patronizing and condescending. No one is in a position to make a determination as to how much thinking Ms. Ireland has devoted to the subject in her life based on her piece. And nowhere do I feel that Ms. Ireland is trying to show off her knowledge of wabi sabi, although I get more than a whiff of that in the criticism.

[sumogirl]

12:14 AM on 07/15/2011

Thank you, Skilletlicker. Your detailed interpretation and support of the author’s piece is commendable. We agree that Ms. Ireland “took what she wanted and left the rest…” Unfortunately, the taking and leaving “the rest” is the part I had a problem with given that wabi sabi was included in the title, “My Strange Love of Wabi-Sabi.” I assumed someone who professes to “love” wabi sabi and decides to write about it on a popular forum probably has more than a casual familiarity with the concept--which BTW was taken from the Chinese. I haven’t been following HuffPo for very long, so perhaps my expectations of written contributions are too high. I re-read Ireland’s piece and still came away wondering...I read my own comment again and saw how I could have been more understanding and less patronizing (or not patronizing at all). If a writer puts a topic out there--the expectation should be that there will be criticism. You were compelled to criticize my response, so are you part of the problem, or are you being helpful?

FYI, I did a search for “wabi sabi” and saw that there are thousands of entries on the internet--especially in the last few years and including many pieces by Japanese authors.

[dru]

09:51 PM on 07/13/2011

What a fabulous blog... I've enjoyed your segments of MDD and now find that I share your design philosophy: Your prose delightful as well!

[Fleurdamour]

03:40 PM on 07/13/2011

I love the shabby chic cottage feel, and that aesthetic applies to my clothes as well as my house. I like old things that remind me of the past, and of older relatives who are no longer here. I've also always been a bit klutzy, and I like arts and crafts projects. If something can't survive having a little Elmer's Glue or Coke Zero spilled on it, I can't own it. I like pretty things but I also like to be comfortable. A stack of interesting books and an old velvet armchair is my idea of heaven.

[Veronika Miller]

08:57 PM on 07/12/2011

Thanks for taking a stand on wabi- sabi and creating spaces to live, not hover in. Excuse me while I now go and throw myself on the floor to laugh about the vagina comment. So gonna borrow that one.
V