Wabi Kusa

The string gardens evolved from he kokedama called to mind wabi-kusa for me. I think in alot of ways the wabi-kusa remind me more of the string gardens than the kokedama even.

An example of wabi-kusa

From another angle & close up-

So what is the definition of these little plant balls? The term was coined by ADA, the company founded by Takashi Amano, and is a combination of Wabi-Sabi and Kusa. Wabi-Sabi is a pretty loaded descriptor and is difficult to summarise with only a few words. One of my older favourite definitions was “flawed beauty.” It packs in many subtleties into the combination of two two words and even the wikipedia article is pretty brief in trying to describe it. Kusa translates in this context along the lines of weeds or grass. I could be a smart ass and say wabi-kusa roughly translates as flawed beautiful weeds. That wouldn’t actually be too far off the mark though.

Amano was originally known for masterfully control freak planted aquariums such as-

Which makes it refreshing that he came up with, or at least the company he actively heads, released in a catalogue a few years ago these fun wabi kusa fellows. The intent is something far more free form and unmanaged than typical work that he approves of. Of course it means that the initial construction must be thought of, care must be taken to imagine how the combined materials will grow out in the environment that they are placed in. But part of the intent is just that, to watch how it grows and evolves-

What makes me think of these as being more similar to the string gardens than even the kokedama that inspired them is that for both forms part of the intent behind them is to create them then sit back and and enjoy observing the process of what happens afterwards, on its own. To suggest that they don’t require care would be misleading but part of caring for them is less about controlling them and more about tending to them so that they can be allowed to find their own balance, this is more literal with the string gardens that are suspended but true for both.

I get the impression that the kokedama, being derived from bonsai, still take more attention to shaping and directing. I could be entirely wrong since my kokedama research (hard core since I spent all of a day on and off looking about for info about them, oh yes, i’m a slackardly highly motivated, but sometimes time crunched obsesser before I scuttle on to the next thing to freak out about. Ahem, but yes, being derived from bonsai, I get the impression that kokedama is more focused on directing the growth and appearance to the desired form.

I’m going to guess that all these forms and methods will continue to obsess me for a long time to come. Some of them have plagued me for a few years already. I’ve been a bit ostrich like with my head in the sand and not engaging with or doing anything for quite awhile though. Maybe this blog which makes me actively think about and look into thing will help change that a bit. I hope so. Being able to create something even a tiny bit as fascinating as these-

would definately be an improvement in life.

I’ll probably be dragging the aquatic chatter over to Menagerie Meanderings in the future though. This would be one of the tangents where people asked me what I’d do about post cross over. It is problematic but I think those few problems are going to be easier to deal with than having something that looks like someone with MPD fought over a single wordpress.com account.