Margaret and I visited the Mengei Museum in Balboa Park to see again some of the things we like most in the Park.  I was struck by how well the term Mengei fits not just the things in museums and at home and in the world around us.  It is the appropriate word for the eucalyptus trees and and and and…

Almost a hundred years ago, the Japanese scholar Soetsu Yanagi coined the term mengei— everybody’s art— to draw attention to objects that were made by hand for daily use, according to age-old traditions of Japan, Korea and other Asian countries.  Yang was concerned that these craft traditions would disappear with the rise of industrialization in Asia.  He was making the point, too, that the value of an object has little or nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the materials used to make it, and everything to do with the respect for material used and the care that goes into its design and formation.  

                                                                           —Mengai Museum