wabi sabi pears

wabi sabi pears --

convoluted, capricious,

curving back inside

Among the four baskets of perfect pears, it's the wabi sabi pears that catch my eye. Marked by asymmetrical concave curves on their convex surfaces that look like eyes, mouths, dimples, belly buttons, these random quirks give them far more character and charm than their unmarred companions. 
          My attraction to the natural imperfections of these unique pears reminds me of Edward Weston's fascination with bell peppers, especially his most famous black and white image, Pepper No. 30. In Daybooks, II, 225, he comments: "I have done perhaps fifty negatives of peppers: because of the endless variety in form manifestations, because of their extraordinary surface texture, because of the power, the force suggested in their amazing convolutions. A box of peppers at the corner grocery hold implications to stir me emotionally more than almost any other edible form, for they run the gamut of natural forms, in experimental surprises."