Pottery Barn doesn't sell Wabi Sabi

So last week those kids over at Apartment Therapy ran a piece hailing the arrival of what they were calling the Wabi Sabi style of decorating. Ugh. Here's the photo they used to illustrate this "new" style.

It looks sterile and affectedly rustic, sort of a pared down Scabby Chic. There's nothing Wabi Sabi about those photos.

So what's Wabi Sabi? Wabi Sabi is a Japanese philosophy, it's not a style. It's purposefully un-chic and anti-trendy. Wabi Sabi is a uniquely Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature. It accepts and appreciates the natural cycles of growth, decay and death. It's simple, slow, uncluttered and it reveres authenticity above all else. And THAT is not for sale in a catalog or at the mall.

Now that Feng Shui has run its course as an Asian idea that could be appropriated to sell candles and knick knacks, I suppose the tastemakers out there are hunting for a new one to take its place. Not so fast I say. Feng Shui, while it was an aesthetic school of thought, was also an animist belief system. Embracing Feng Shui makes sense to me if you are ethnically Chinese, but if it's not your culture then it's a pose --you'll always be an outsider looking in. Sorry.

Wabi Sabi presents a similar problem but even more so. Wabi Sabi is an outgrowth of Zen Buddhism and carries with it all of the cultural trappings of Japan. I find a lot about Japanese culture that's fascinating and worth looking at more closely. Reading about Zen, or Wabi Sabi for that matter is interesting because like a lot of Eastern Thought, it runs in diametric opposition to the ideas that undergird the West. I can read about it, I can think about it, I can bring parts of it into my life, but it can never be fully mine. 

I love how Japanese pottery looks. Its rustic and imperfect finishes are an exercise in studied imperfection. I'm fascinated by it and when I look at a Japanese tea set I can appreciate its beauty. But I'll never fully grasp the cultural history behind it so I let it be an interesting and beautiful piece of pottery and leave it at that.

In many parts of the world, things that are American are cool. And sorry George Bush, it's not because they envy our "freedom." What they envy is the sophistication all things American represent. They may hate our bullying foreign policy, but they admire our pop culture. If you ever find yourself in a non-English speaking part of the world, pay attention to the T-shirts people wear. 

I remember spending a couple of days poking around in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica some years ago. At one point, I was sitting alone in a cafe and watching Costa Rica reveal itself to me. The woman who waited on me was a Russian transplant who spoke Russian-accented Spanish which was wild. I'd never heard Spanish spoken quite the way she spoke it. Through a combination of my American-accented Spanish and her Russian version of it, we could understand one another. I wanted to hear how on earth she ended up in Puerto Limon, but she wasn't interested in talking about Russia or Costa Rica for that matter. It was kind of odd, but I'm flexible, I'd survive if I didn't hear her story. However, what I couldn't help but to notice was that she was wearing a T-shirt that read "Blonde Cool Bitch in Hollywood!" Now this woman didn't speak English and probably didn't know what her T-shirt said. But her point wasn't to have it make sense. Her point wasn't to call herself a blond bitch. The point she was trying to make was that she was westernized and sophisticated. But it was a pose. 

No sophisticated westerner would be caught dead in something like that. The story of a Russian woman who emigrates to Costa Rica and waits on tables must be fascinating. I kept trying to pry it out of her, but she kept discounting her own experiences and instead wanted to talk about American TV shows. I gave up eventually. Adopting the cultural trappings of a culture you don't understand doesn't make any sense to me and it seems like a waste of energy. You also end up being a poseur, and that's never a good thing.

What's the point of all of this? Well the point is that finding an $1800 table with a distressed finish isn't Wabi Sabi despite what you may read in a magazine.

Try this if you want to get closer to the spirit of Wabi Sabi.

Not really, but it's a lot closer to the spirit of Wabi Sabi.

If you want to bring some Wabi Sabi influences into your home and life, running out and buying a bunch of crap isn't the way to do it. Instead, take care of the things you own and let them grow old under your care. The scratched up kitchen table your family's gathered around for 20 years has a story to tell, your story. Common sense and sentimentality will tell you to hold onto it and you should --you don't need an ill-informed decorating trend to tell you that. Should someone tell you that your old table is Wabi Sabi, you have my permission to call them a "Blonde Cool Bitch in Hollywood!"

Made a Mano makes my head spin

Last week, I wrote about an author in Berlin and his amazing mosaic bathrooms. Christophe Niemann and I corresponded a bit and he sent me a link to an Italian website called Made a Mano. Niemann told me that if he had unlimited funds, he would have tiled his bathrooms with the offerings of Made a Mano instead of the 4x4s I was so enamored with. I clicked on his link and knew immediately what he was talking about.

This is Mount Etna in Sicily.

Mount Etna has been erupting for thousands of years and is hands-down the most active volcano on the planet. Over the millennia, vast amounts of basaltic lava have solidified on its flanks.

Made a Mano takes this solidified lava and makes glazed tiles, glazed counters and sinks. Made a Mano also powders it to make a low-fire clay they call Cotto.

Unfortunately, Made a Mano doesn't yet have a US distributor. But I can dream, can't I?

So I was going through their website and trying to contain myself when I came across this tile:

That pattern looked strangely familiar. And then it hit me. I'd seen the same pattern on a floor in Pompeii.

So far as I'm concerned, everything can be traced back to the Romans. Made a Mano gained a lifetime fan with the inclusion of that pattern, let me tell you.

I'm insane for this stuff. Check out these tile patterns.

Now bear in mind that these things are hand-painted on glazed stone. Just beautiful.

But that's not all. They get involved in floors too. Take that Pyrolave!

They make counters and sinks too.

Beautiful, all of it. Check out Made a Mano's website and drool. Now, I just have to find a way to get my hands on their stuff.

Wow! custom fabrics on demand

I came across a mention of a company called Spoonflower on Apartment Therapy last week and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. Spoonflower is an Internet company that prints custom fabrics. It's an amazing thing, really and their process is really wild.

Say you're looking for a fabric but no matter where you look you can't find the right one. Imagine too that you're willing to take a stab at designing your own fabric. So instead of hunting for the next couple of months for the right pattern, just make one. Take what you can already see in your mind's eye, recreate it in a drawing program as described on Spoonflower's website, upload it and then two weeks later, a fabric you designed arrives in the UPS. Sounds pretty simple, right? I suppose it is a simple process but the idea behind it is revolutionary.

For now, Spoonflower is printing on 100% cotton broadcloth with no minimum order and no set up fee. They are selling their fabric (actually your fabric) for $18 a yard and $5 a swatch. Amazing!

A children's clothing designer writes a blog called Mama Made and she has some really clear instructions on how to best use Spoonflower as well as some pretty cool insights into her creative process. Her Spoonflower instructions are broken into five separate postings:

1. Thinking about and creating your designs
   
2. Computer art programs and what they do
   
3. Getting to know Inkscape, a vector art program
   
4. Finishing your design and creating the perfect tile
   
5. Color calibration
   

Rachel's blog is full of interesting ideas and examples of Mama Made's clothing and fabrics. It's worth a look if for no other reason than to see what's out there. It's also a pretty compelling read.

Spoonflower's onto something big. The fabrics they print are intended primarily for use in clothing construction and craft projects. Though it's only a matter of time before the selections and intended uses of the base fabrics increases. Some day in the not too distant future, you'll be able to reupholster an armchair in a fabric of your own design. Something that started as a vision in your mind then made real in the form of a piece of furniture. That's the sort of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, I swear.

Oh, the images scattered all over this post are actual samples of some of the designs in Spoonflower's public gallery. These are just folks uploading their designs and I'm flabbergasted by the whole thing. Bravo Spoonflower!

Thank you!

At around 11 o'clock this morning, visitor number 10,000 stumbled onto this blog. Thank you!

Here's a great kitchen

Last Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle Living section profiled the renovation of sculptor Angelio Batle's work/ live space in Potrero Hill. If you're not familiar with San Francisco, Potrero Hill is a mixed development neighborhood that rises above the port on the east side of town. Though it's by now loaded with infill, new construction "loft" condominiums, Potrero Hill has its share of actual lofts and repurposed industrial buildings.

One such light industrial building is now the home of Angelio Batle and his family. San Francisco real estate is absurdly expensive and what was so interesting to me about the Chron story is that Batle's renovation was pretty heavily budget-driven. I have no idea how much money this family invested in their property, but they worked with an architect who understood how to stretch a dollar. In looking over the photos of the finished project, only a practiced eye could tell that there were corners cut and expenses shaved all over the place.

As is always the case with these things, I have a tendency to pay extra attention to the kitchen for obvious reasons. And whoever designed this kitchen deserves an award. I have a feeling that it was the work of the architect because the cabinetry is from Ikea. I cannot imagine a kitchen designer using anything from Ikea, least of all their cabinetry. But whatever, a pretty picture is a pretty picture and a good design is a good design.

Here's the panoramic view of this kitchen.

Now where it gets interesting is in the left corner. What looks like a stack of mismatched furniture is exactly that. The pieces were fitted together, painted a uniform color and then surrounded by new cabinetry.

Here's a close-up of how these disparate parts fit together.

The use of the gold-painted sculpture niches in this old furniture is really clever. It makes this kitchen the Batle's, that's for sure. Doing something like this is making this otherwise generic kitchen a home. It reflects the lives of the people who live here and I'm crazy for this.

Resourcefulness trumps budget every time. Everybody cuts corners, I don't care how much money they have. The trick is to do it with candor and wit and the Batle family hit a home run with this one. Bravo.