Chapter One - Creation

Chapter One - Creation

16/10/1994

The apartment complex is called the Great Wall Building. Just like its name, the design of the building is long and narrow. There is a long corridor running across each floor. Outside each unit across the corridor, there is a balcony that some use as a garden patch. From unit 1101, there lives a 7 year old girl often gathering sand and mud using her tiny hands. She would put them into a bucket then pour them onto the balcony. That is her playground, her land, her Kingdom. She would construct walls and towers, then the entire castles connected by bridges. Of course, there would be a moat on the outer skirt of the Kingdom as the first line of defence and a canal for transportation inside the Kingdom. The intertwined topography is activated by the flow of water. What a sophisticated architecture! I know it was embedded in her mind then. There was this satisfaction. A masterpiece capturing a fraction of time and being.

10/1/2010

‘Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?’ was titled for a painting by French artist Paul Gauguin in Tahiti while he was searching for primitive answers. Many artists have gone through the same phase of contemplating on this big question of our being and our relationship to the Universe at some point. Ancient Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu (born 4-6th Century BC) addressed the start of the Universe in Tao Te Ching, chapter 42 being:

The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are harmonised by the Breath of Vacancy. 4

4 Laozi and James Legge, The Tao Te Ching (Simon & Brown, 2018).

Lao-tzu from 2500 years ago suggested all things are connected in the Universe as one/unity/consciousness. ‘Tao’ (道 /d ào/: the way) consists of two conflicting, complementary and interdependent forces of Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang coexist everywhere in nature, such as the masculum and feminine energies, the positive and negative spaces, birth and death, day and night, light and shadow. The third element refers to ‘Chi’ (⽓ /q ì/ : life force or energy flow). The interaction between Yin and Yang produces all possibilities in the Universe. The energy exchanges between two opposite dualities also forms harmonised wholeness. Yin and Yang support each other, regulate each other, and transform into each other. 5

Fig. 1 | Yin Yang Tai Chi Symbol6

This philosophy can also be tested in Cosmology, Mathematics and Colour Theory. The symbol of Yin and Yang is a circle formed by two interdependent counterparts, the black and white representing each paradox such as the dark and light. Through different wavelengths of light in refraction, Newton discovered colour prism. As artists we learned that with three primitive colours red, yellow and blue, we can mix them into thousands of different varieties. 7

5 Jason Gregory, Effortless Living : Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2018). 6 Yin Yang Tai Chi Symbol <http://chienergy.co.uk/yin-yang/> [accessed 20 June 2020]. 7 Josef Albers, Interaction of Color. [2], Kommentar (Starnberg: Keller, 1973).

4/10/2015

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2

Being and non-being produce each other. Difficulty and ease bring about each other. Long and short delimit each other. High and low rest on each other. Sound and voice harmonize each other. Front and back follow each other.

Therefore the sage abides in the condition of unattached action. And carries out the wordless teaching. Here, the myriad things are made, yet not separated . 8

It seems that incredible creations always had the force from makers’ deliberate intention and the power of nature. The vitality within me always grows and blossoms against the force of control. It just seems to be too disappointing to be expected, like a rebeliant teenager, always wants to surprise the world. However, I will somehow surrender and fall back into the laws of nature. I enjoy the liberty of my maker, letting me be whatever I want to be. Even though there are days I feel lazy by purely following the instructions, The road least travelled is always more adventurous. We dance together, with the flow of the yin and the yang, Hand in hand with heads in the air. The opposite forces will take turns, Interplay and once find its balance of co-existence. There will be beauty appearing in between. On this note, nature and I are one.

15/1/2018

Only in recent years, I realised the taste towards beauty has shifted. Modernity, industrialisation and bauhaus movement satisfied human’s senses by being perfect, exact, symmetrical, and geometrical. Perhaps like fashion or any other being with its own cycle of life, it comes to a period when imperfections are being celebrated and uniqueness are treasured. I see human senses are being tickled, when they see flowers just started to open and flare or a raindrop runs down the veins of a leaf almost leaving the tip. In Japanese philosophy, the way of living is called ‘wabi-sabi’.

8 Laozi and Legge.

It gives power to letting go, and for makers or viewers to enjoy this aesthetics is to empty out their mind, echoing ‘Zazen’ in Buddhism. 9 As artist/potter Bernard Leach’s close friend - Soetsu Yanagi once said, “we enjoy those pots most which are born and not made”. 10 Zen is inner peace. Zen is Life. Zen is becoming oneself.

21/5/2019

Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, Impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional. 11

The industrialisation and materialistic world has been feeding people with modern, perfectly made goods. There are always newer and better things. Huge amounts of waste are going into landfills everyday, from product development to defects and post consumption. Always wanting more and never enough, people are trapping themselves in the rat race. As a human being, each of us is unique, imperfect, and temporarily habitating on this planet for a short while. Under all things we own and wear, who we really are, what makes us human, and how our senses respond to beauty around us. Seeking the primitive raw energy in all things seems to be the intuitive desire of an artist. The energy of a seed bursts open, a flower strives to blossom, leaves twist their body towards the sunlight craving for the attention and touch of love. The raw desire of feeling alive. Wabi-sabi praises the nature of things, taking away any decorations, excessives, and expressing the pure, true personality of oneself. Ikebana (Japanese floral arrangement) celebrates the same philosophy of wabi-sabi. A chipped vase is completed with a single flower bud. A dead branch still exhibits its liveliness through visual movement. The balance is achieved through simplicity rather than abundance. The raw energy from the plants becomes one with the matching vessel. Japanese term Ichi-go Ichi-e (once in a lifetime encounter) describes every moment in life that is unrepeatable and is to be treasured. Due to the finitude of one’s existence, every life is treated with respect and care, no matter how big or small. In this regard, less is more, less is enough.

9 Ray Billington and Inc Ebrary, Understanding Eastern Philosophy. (London: Routledge, 2003). 10 Bernard Leach, A Potter ’ s Book (London: Unicorn, An Imprint Of Unicorn Publishing Group, 2016). 11 Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers: For Artists, Designers, Poets and Designers (Point Reyes: Imperfect Publishing, 2008), p. 7 (p. 7).

Fig. 2 | Cherishing Something Old and Broken12

In Bergson’s words, wabi-sabi is a ‘form of aesthetic feeling’. ‘If musical sounds affect us more powerfully than the sounds of nature, the reason is that nature confines itself to expressing feelings, whereas music suggests them to us’, similarly the charm of poetry comes with images being developed through rhythmic words, that aesthetic emotions are elevated. It is the same spirit of ikebana. Learning ceramics taught me how to surrender. Surrender to the goal of seeking ultimate truth, to nature and the universe, and finally to ourselves. There is no absolute truth, nor absolute perfection. You will never be happier if you always want more. Wabi-sabi is about appreciating what something truly is and the beauty lies in itself, nothing more or less.

12 Cherishing Something Old and Broken <https://www.pinterest.cl/pin/530228556132539266/> [accessed 25 May 2020].