As part of the Arts Banquet Festival (local arts festival) I am creating a community sculpture. The theme of the festival is 'Transition, Transience and Change'. I love the idea of engaging with a community to create a single piece that represents each person in it. Last year for the Brian Boru Festival I did something similar using a tree. It was a community tree and each flower and leaf on it represented someone who helped create it. It was very simple and easy to do yet it inspired a lot of questions and comments.
This year I have upped the ante. My interpretation of the theme is the 'Wabi-Sabi Sphere' sculpture. Sounds very odd and arty. I have however tried to simplify it for people to understand. I am running workshops with school kids, families, teenagers and an active age group. I will also have much of the work coming from myself.
I came across the idea of Wabi Sabi a few months ago and it hit a nerve with me. It is a Japanese philosophy which is centred around the acceptance of transience. It is a beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It has three underlying aspects, nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. This all really resonated with me. So often I am restricted by a need to be perfect and held up on the goal to finish. So much so that it often ruins the enjoyment of doing something or causes me to put things on the long finger for fear of doing it 'wrong' or stressing out that it 'needs' to be finished yesterday. The idea of Wabi Sabi allows me a breathing space. When I think of it I realise that I will never be finished and nothing will ever be perfect and there is beauty in that.
When I heard that the theme was 'Transition, Transience and Change' I knew I had to bring in the idea of Wabi Sabi into it some how. The idea for a sphere came about as I knew that we could use the local cathedral to exhibit and that excited me. I wanted to create something that would contrast with the space. A simple form in vibrant colours to contrast with the dark ancient structure.
To create the sculpture each person who participates will paint a sphere to reflect where they are in their life, this could be something as simple as a colour. I felt that as an individual the sphere can be a symbol of something that is a perfect whole and complete, yet because it is a sphere it is always moving and changing or has the potential to move and change. Therefore My Wabi Sabi Sphere is a representation of that person and where they are in their life, even when they are in a state of change, transformation or transience they are still perfect, whole and a thing of beauty. I will then create a sculpture using all the spheres.
I will post up the photos of the sculpture in progress and the finished piece over the next few weeks. In the meantime you can read up about Wabi Sabi on the web.
Try to remember Wabi Sabi next time you are caught up in perfectionism.
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