A toast to small things
In this new year, I’m focusing my sights on the enduring power of the creative spirit and offering a toast to the beauty of small things.
2021 closed on a high note courtesy of my recent trip to New York City. While I was there, I fell in love with “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” an exquisite exhibition at the Jewish Museum. The exhibition takes its title from an extraordinary memoir by Edmund de Waal about a collection of Japanese netsuke purchased by his great uncle, Charles Ephrussi. During WWII, this collection of tiny carvings made from wood, ivory, and bone were ingeniously stowed away in a mattress to elude confiscation by the Nazis.
Netsuke are miniature sculptures traditionally used as kimono ornaments, button-like toggles fastened to a sash with a silk cord. Each one can fit easily in the palm of your hand; each is unique and feels very much alive. In the exhibition, there’s a tumble of playful turtles climbing over each other in a heap, beggars scratching themselves, and a wily octopus spooning with a courtesan. There are monks and street vendors, masks and skulls and lovers making love; dragons, dogs, frogs, and rat catchers on their daily rounds; and one charming ivory hare with inset amber eyes.
Installation view of the Ephrussi collection at the Jewish Museum.
These netsuke possess two qualities that I find irresistible—a heightened appreciation of seemingly insignificant moments and a refreshing, down-to-earth sense of humor. How did such common objects as kimono-toggles become the vessels of a truly extraordinary artistic tradition? Why are humans compelled to make beautiful things not just to hang on the wall, but to wear and use every day? Netsuke feed my obsession with “art for daily life.” These uncanny carvings are not simply eye candy—more like soul food.
Edmund de Waal seems to have been fascinated by these qualities himself. In his memoir, he confesses his desire to “know what the relationship has been between this wooden thing that I am rolling between my fingers . . . and where it has been. . . . I want to know whose hands it has been in and what they felt about it and thought about it.”
I love the word beauty, but it’s a tricky concept. What we consider beautiful is often determined by cultural biases, not to mention questions of wealth and power. Nevertheless, I have a hunch that at its core, beauty is fundamental to our well being. It is also deeply personal. There is something precious and powerful about the way we cherish familiar things. Perhaps they embody the tenderness of lost moments or of fond memories that almost slipped away. Whatever the reason, art has a way of reminding us about the small things that pluck our heartstrings and make us smile.