Robert Lee Morris Set of Three Ceramic Vases

Patterned after the lipstick I designed for Elizabeth Arden in the early 1990’s, I carved three wax prototypes and worked with a local potter to make molds and create a limited group of these iconic vases. Glazed with the same Verdigris color that early American Arts and Crafts TECO pottery had, a luscious and signature green, these pieces are now very rare. Each one is signed in the bottom as shown. I have always equated the TECO pottery from the 1905 era as being part of the Wabi Sabi mentality, as the Verdigris color is what happens to a copper roof and ancient bronze weaponry .

Wabi Sabi is the term for the Japanese expression of beauty with a soul. It connotes objects and surfaces of common everyday tools carry a level of aged and worn spirit, a radical kind of new beauty. I was brought up in Japan from the ages of 7 to 11, a very formative period of my life. I lived in off base (USAF) housing in a tiny village surrounded by rice paddies and zen gardens. I played in and out of the magnificent Japanese school buildings in my neighborhood, old cedar, Tatami matting  and rice sliding doors. I distinctly remember how worn and soft the cedar doorframes were, how out Tabi covered feet would slip and slide on the slick highly polished cedar floors, smoothed from ages of slippered feet moving up and down the hallways of the buildings. I participated in classic tea ceremonies where every minute detail of the tea room was a perfect composure of Wabi Sabi elements, along with one dynamic Ichebana arrangement. These pieces from my home accessory collection are mostly created in the tradition of Wabi Sabi understated beauty.