By Amy Chavez

Alex Kerr once told me, in a previous interview, about his mentor David Kidd: “David was a genius of Asian aesthetics. He would put a group of snuff bottles or something on the table and say, ‘Now Alex, tell me what you see.’ Then we’d talk about it for hours and he’d expose their secrets. Or he’d pull out a screen in the living room and give insights. It wasn’t just about the look of particular antiques, but how they go together, that axis along which things should be arranged. That’s what I learned from David.”

In Kerr’s new YouTube channel Secrets of Things, he continues the tradition of passing down “secrets” to others by allowing the listener to eaves drop on his short conversations about East Asian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Burmese, Khmer, Lao, and Thai art. And it’s fascinating stuff.

“…one thing I’m trying to do which goes all the way back to David Kidd,” said Kerr about restoring old houses in Japan, “is to take these old things and bring them into the modern age and make them new and fresh; to take a wonderful structure, make it more livable and bring out what’s hidden right now—its secrets—and to make people look again, and see what’s really of value.”

“Cinnabar Bowl” is the first in the Secrets of Things series. It’s rather appropriate that Kerr starts the series off with a humble tea bowl, because I remember him saying, “You ask the tea master why you should put the tea bowl to the left or to the right, and he answers ‘Because that’s the rule.’ What use is that to anyone? But there is a reason, and it’s a profound one, and it’s a useful one. So when you can introduce it that way, people can see the value.”

Start unlocking secrets of Asian art by watching Secrets of Things. And be sure to hit the Subscribe button while you’re there.