R is for rust

W is for wabi sabi.

I used to go on inner-city field trips in Indianapolis with Eric Kass; we'd photograph old signs and other deteriorating type. I think I shot this on the side of a railroad car. Eric introduced me to this book about wabi sabi, a Japanese concept of aesthetics.

Here is a definition of wabi sabi from another book: "Wabi sabi is an intuitive appreciation of transient beauty in the physical world that reflects the irreversible flow of life in the spiritual world. It is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things."