Wabi-Sabi Home: Finding beauty in imperfection

Wabi

Sabi

Home

Wabi

Sabi

Home

FINDING BEAUTY IN IMPERFECTION

MARK & SALLY BAILEY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEBI TRELOAR

SENIOR DESIGNER Megan Smith

SENIOR COMMISSIONING EDITOR Annabel Morgan

LOCATION MANAGER Jess Walton

PRODUCTION MANAGER Gordana Simakovic

ART DIRECTOR Leslie Harrington

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Julia Charles

PUBLISHER Cindy Richards

STYLING Mark Bailey

INDEXER Diana LeCore

First published in 2014 as Imperfect Home.

This edition published by

Ryland Peters & Small

20–21 Jockey’s Fields,

London WC1R 4BW

and

341 E 116th Street

New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text © Mark and Sally Bailey 2014, 2019

Design and photographs

© Ryland Peters & Small 2014, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-78879-091-8

E-ISBN: 978-1-78879-332-2

Printed and bound in China

The authors’ moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

US Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

CONTENTS

introduction

wabi-sabi philosophy

CREASED

{textiles}

SCUFFED

{texture}

SHADED

{colour}

CRAFTED

{handmade}

GATHERED

{collections}

address book

credits

index

INTRODUCTION

This book was inspired by a hand-beaten brass spoon, bought from Tokyo’s Mingeikan, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. Our spoon was one of a handful that were similar but also different – not just useful but unique, and certainly without the flawless regularity of a machine-made object. The museum’s shop was no ordinary gift shop; it contained a meticulously curated collection of objects by present-day Japanese makers, including ceramics, glass, baskets, paper and metalware.

The Japanese concept of finding beauty in the imperfect and embracing the humble is called wabi-sabi. It is not a decorating style, but a whole worldview. Walking through Mingeikan’s galleries, wabi-sabi was abundantly present, in the simple rustic shapes of early hagi ware glazed pottery or the nubbly, highly tactile cast-iron kettles. These objects seemed to have a soul, not least because their little imperfections were the result of them having been made by hand.

Returning to Japan to take photographs for this book, we found that wabi-sabi was alive and well in many Japanese homes; the frayed, the weathered and the worn are embraced, and ordinary, practical objects are given elevated status by being displayed in a wonderfully measured way. Widening our search, we uncovered homeowners all over the world who appreciate the imperfect. They have created inspiring spaces that are individual, yet share an understanding that wobbly, battered, scuffed, peeling and even broken objects are not just beautiful but preferable to pristine ones, because they bring a place to life and make it feel homely and personal.

Each chapter of this book – textiles, texture, colour, handmade, collections – expands upon an element of the imperfect home. They consider ways to incorporate these features into your own space, and also focus more closely on a single home that encapsulates these ideas. We hope that they will inspire you to see the beauty in the imperfect.

IMPERFECT PHILOSOPHY

Flawlessness is to be admired in some quarters, but it is hard to justify its place in the home. From an aesthetic point of view, rigid symmetricality and uniform textures and colours do little to stimulate the eye, or the imagination. And from a practical perspective, a pristine house will soon be subject to the ravages of daily life – bumps and scrapes are inevitable, even if you are unshakeably fastidious.

We believe in a looser, more relaxed approach. We’re not advocating that you forget about the housework, or let your possessions pile up unhindered, but that you surround yourself with ordinary, irregular things that you love to look at. Indeed, you should welcome them in, as a way to achieve a sense of true homeliness.

This looser approach might mean finding more spontaneous ways to display art or photographs, hanging them from a bulldog clip or pinning them directly to the wall – being more flexible will enable you to easily change things around if you tire of them. It might entail patching and mending your textiles, rather than throwing them away, and appreciating their idiosyncratic new look. A sense of authenticity is much easier to achieve when you choose handmade objects over machine-made ones, especially the humbler items that you touch every day, like glasses and tableware, mixing and matching them with harder-edged industrial fittings to create a pleasing contrast.

When it comes to the backdrop for your objects, a calm, neutral setting will make things stand out. However, if you are lucky enough to live in an older home where surfaces have been built up successively over decades, you may well have a rich treasure trove of imperfect walls, doors and other features just waiting to be uncovered. Try peeling back the layers instead of covering them up, and you may reveal old plasterwork, historic wallpaper and worn paintwork that will add a vital textural element to the home, and which speaks of authenticity.

ORDINARY IRREGULARITY

Surround yourself with things you love to look at, no matter how ordinary or irregular they might be. In the dining room of our home on the Welsh borders (opposite), chalky white walls, flagstone floors and a scuffed canteen table with a black linoleum top provide a stable, unchanging backdrop that allows us to experiment with new ways to display.

OUT IN THE OPEN

Dispense with drawers and cupboards and keep your treasures out on display.

In our home, we use a galvanized metal industrial rail attached to an old French monastery bench in lieu of a wardrobe.

We all delight in the unexpected, and displaying items for their patina, their silhouette or simply their craftsmanship can make you see them in a new light. Objects that are broken, incomplete or obsolete may have lost their original function, but they can still be displayed as beautiful things in their own right or, better still, given a new life. Reusing things will not only challenge your creative skills, but makes for a thrifty approach too. And you can often find that scuffed, peeling and battered objects have a natural