MIND GAMESHow a Japanese playground pastime became an adult therapyHikaru dorodango is the Japanese art of making beautiful spheres from mud, by rolling earth by hand into a perfect sphere and polishing it until it gleams. Once a playground game, adults are now adopting the craft as a peaceful pastime.

I first learnt of Japanese hikaru dorodango while skimming through an issue of Tate Magazine in October, 2002. Something on the last page caught my eye: a series of images arranged vertically, like a photo booth strip. The images clearly depicted the transformation of regular dirt into something beautiful – a dark, glassy sphere. My initial reaction was the same as innumerable others in the West: ‘How have I not heard of this before?’

For most of us, there is both an aversion and an attraction to mud. For children, it’s mostly an irresistible attraction. For adults, any day that involves a significant quantity of mud is generally a bad day; willingly plunging one’s hands into a messy pile of it just never happens. Yet, every adult remembers playing with mud as a child. You remember the way it felt in your hands and under your feet and the way it smelled. Laundry was someone else’s problem.

My own childhood mud adventures often started with a ‘river.’ The headwaters were a garden hose placed at the top of our sloping backyard. Bridges were made. Twigs became canoes and tree leaves became boats. Inevitably, the puddle at the bottom of our yard would threaten to consume the surrounding landscaping and nearby garden. With the headwaters turned off, the civil-engineering project would begin in earnest: a slumping Venice would emerge on the shores, complete with murky canals and soggy, amorphous buildings.
Over the years I have given several dorodango workshops and watched with interest as adult aversion to mud gives way to childlike attraction. With everybody’s hands in the mud, the ice is broken and conversations begin to flow – adults are transported back to childhood and our worries and cares fall away. Creating dorodango radically changes one’s perspective on dirt. Something most of us ignore, avoid, or abhor suddenly becomes something wonderful – an art medium and ultimately a beautiful object. Dirt is no longer ‘dirty’ – it might be the gorgeous colour of earth you noticed on a road trip or it might be dirt that is meaningful
to you in some other way.

As interest in the art form has grown, I have answered emails from hundreds of people from all over the world and their motivations and stories have inspired me: A US Marine stationed in Afghanistan wanting to create a dorodango from the dirt he served and lived on before returning home. An American expatriate living in Rome – wanting to create seven dorodango from the seven hills of Rome. A baseball fan sneaking infield dirt before the city’s beloved stadium is destroyed. All these people had different motivations, but all recognized hikaru dorodango as a beautiful way to connect with dirt they cared about.

This nostalgia, and the therapeutic quality of the craft, makes the process of creating dorodango truly meditative. I have a large studio building behind my house. After everything is done for the evening, I head out to the studio for a few hours. Usually, I have a simple goal in mind – a dorodango made from this or that dirt – but it’s the process that I'Creating dorodango, radically changes one's perspective on dirt. Something most of us ignore, or abhor, becomes  something wonderful'really crave. It is a time when I am taken out of the buzz of a day and can focus only on what I’m doing. This is my white space.

Of course, my mind will wander to the events of that day, but the dynamic quality of the earth in my hands always brings me back to the moment. Something changes on the surface — often it’s a pattern that I notice. I look for it as I rotate the ball again. My hands pick up subtle changes in texture. I begin to wonder what would happen if I modulated a step that I took earlier, would it make these patterns more pronounced? I see that the pattern is actually part of a larger pattern. One goal turns into several goals. Ideas. Many of them. Not just ideas about what I’m doing but ideas about work and other areas of my life. My mind is wandering again but something in the object changes and, once again, I am gently guided back to what I am doing. Hours can disappear this way.

Each dorodango is a snapshot of location, time and technique. With my most significant work, I remember minute details from the process – not just about the dirt itself but also about what I was doing at the time and what I was thinking about.
Each dorodango is a snapshot of location, time and technique. With my most significant work, I remember minute details from the process – not just about the dirt itself but also about what I was doing at the time and what I was thinking about.

In some cases, failures tell the most compelling stories. Their surfaces bear the scars of the contrary forces at work within a dorodango as it cured. Uniform tension throughout the sphere gave way to cracking or crazing in unique, elegant lines or patterns. They’re beautiful in their own way. You could almost imagine a new form of divination emerging from the art, like reading tea leaves.

The Japanese have a wonderful expression that has no match in the English language – wabi-sabi, which means ‘finding beauty in imperfect things’: chipped vases; wood that has been aged by weather and time; objects that evoke an appreciation for the transient nature of life and beauty. I can’t pretend to fully understand the concept, but I do think that an appreciation for it has been fostered in me by this art form.
 
Watch the film here