In the late 1960s . . . Wabi-sabi seemed to me a nature-based aesthetic paradigm that restored a measure of sanity and proportion to the art of living. Wabi-sabi resolved my artistic dilemma about how to create beautiful things without getting caught up in the dispiriting materialism that usually surrounds such creative acts. Wabi-sabi — deep, multidimensional, elusive — appeared the perfect antidote to the pervasively slick, saccharine corporate style of beauty I felt was desensitizing American society.
— Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi