Wabi Sabi Shoji
A cup between matter, gesture and time
The earth reaches the hands.
A form slowly takes shape.
Before the object, there is a gesture.
Before the result, there is a time.
The cup is born this way:
through the encounter between the hand, the clay and what the material allows itself to become.
The Wabi Sabi Shoji emerges from a ceramic tradition that recognizes the value of simplicity, function and the presence of the human gesture.
It is not an object created only to be observed.
It is a form designed to enter everyday life.
To accompany a moment.
To gather traces of use.
To transform through time.
Shoji: a name, a memory
The name Shoji is a tribute to Shoji Hamada (1894–1978), master of Japanese ceramics and a central figure of the Mingei movement.
Mingei brought attention back to the beauty of everyday objects made by hand, away from the idea of art as something separate from life.
For Hamada, form did not emerge from the search for perfection, but from the relationship between gesture, material and use.
A ceramic object should not tell only the story of the person who created it.
It should continue to live through those who encounter it.
The Shoji cup is born from this dialogue.
The hand shapes.
The earth preserves.
Use completes the process.
Shoji: light between inside and outside
Shoji is also the name of the traditional Japanese sliding doors made of wood and rice paper.
The paper does not completely close the space.
It allows light to pass through.
It creates a relationship between inside and outside.
It does not separate.
It transforms.
This quality also belongs to the Shoji cup.
Within its soft and simple form lies the idea of a threshold:
a small space between an everyday gesture and presence.
A moment in which something slows down.
Not because time stops,
but because we encounter it.
The beauty of use
In Japanese culture there is a deep relationship between beauty and everyday life.
The concept of Yo no Bi (用の美), often translated as “the beauty of use”, refers to a beauty that does not emerge from the isolated object, but from the encounter between form, function and everyday life.
Beauty is not something static to contemplate.
It is born through time.
Through use.
Through the relationship created between a form and those who inhabit it.
For Soetsu Yanagi, the beauty of handcrafted objects also lies in the marks that time leaves upon them.
A surface that changes.
A rim that gathers traces.
A form that enters the memory of those who use it.
An object does not lose value because it is used.
On the contrary, through use it becomes part of a story.
The Wabi Sabi Shoji cup is born from this vision.
It does not seek an immovable perfection.
It welcomes variations, traces of the gesture and the differences that belong to the material.
A living form.
A presence that continues to transform within everyday life.
The circle and transformation
The shape of the cup also recalls the principle of the Ensō, the circle drawn with a single gesture in Zen tradition.
A circle that is not completely closed.
A form that contains movement.
The Ensō reminds us that everything is in transformation.
Birth.
Change.
End.
A new beginning.
A cup also belongs to this movement.
It is born from earth.
It passes through fire.
It enters everyday life.
It gathers time.
The process: the relationship with matter
Creating a Shoji cup means moving through a slow process.
Clay cannot be forced.
It asks for listening.
It asks for attention.
The form emerges through many decisions:
the pressure of the hand,
a variation in the surface,
a balance between control and openness.
Each cup carries a trace of the process that generated it.
Not an identical repetition.
But a presence.
The material is not simply transformed.
A relationship with it is created.
The Haiku palette: light, earth and silence
The colors of the Shoji cup belong to a research inspired by natural landscapes and variations of light.
Earth tones.
Quiet surfaces.
Shades that change according to the moment and the gaze.
As in a haiku, a few elements can open a wider space.
Do not add.
Observe.
Let the material speak.
A form that continues
A cup does not end when it leaves the kiln.
Another part of its journey begins.
It enters homes.
It accompanies repeated gestures.
It gathers ordinary moments.
A simple form.
An everyday presence.
The Wabi Sabi Shoji is born from this encounter:
between earth and use,
between gesture and time,
between what is created and what continues to live.
