“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”
– Leonard Cohen
In Japanese tradition, there is something called Kintsugi. Kintsugi means “golden joinery,” and is an art form where broken ceramics are carefully mended by artisans using gold or silver resin, so that the repairs become visible and highlight the inherent beauty of the vessel. Mending these ceramics leaves an intentional imprint. The history of the vessel and the mark of the artisan are woven into the story of the vessel, bringing out the beauty of it.
The Japanese believe that broken pieces are there to be mended, and repairs are part of the object’s history. By fusing the old and the new, the broken and the whole, they respect the vessel in its entirety, and showcase it in its natural, imperfect beauty.
I read about Kintsugi a little while ago, and found the concept to be incredibly beautiful. If you look at images of ceramics that have been mended using this technique, you can see why this ancient art form has lasted all these years – it really is visually stunning.
The concept of Kintsugi goes against many current threads of thought. We live in a world of fast fashion and even faster technology. When something breaks, we tend to replace it instead of repairing it. Kintsugi is like the ‘slow fashion’ movement of ceramics. It goes against the grain. Instead of replacing broken things, they are reused in new and inventive ways. With Kintsugi, the broken is repaired in a way that brings out its beauty, making the cracks a feature, and the imperfections, the scars that hold the whole piece together.
Kintsugi believes that beauty exists in the broken. It encourages the viewer to see beyond the surface, presenting them with a mirror to look back at themselves, and challenge their own belief system.
I don’t believe there is anyone who doesn’t feel broken in some way. Living is tied to heartbreak, and sometimes our scars feel beyond repair. But what if we challenged the way we viewed our personal cracks? Instead of believing they made us broken, could we learn to embrace them?
Just like vessels, people with history engraved into them are beautiful because of what they have lived through. Think of your grandparents, with their lives etched into them, like a roadmap of living, each one telling a different story.
Carrying around the knowledge that our stories are what make us interesting, and our imperfections are what make us beautiful is like fusing the broken and the whole in Kintsugi.
What if we mended the cracks in our own facade with an abundance of care and attention, making them precious again? What if we filled these cracks with metaphoric gold, and found the silver lining in our personal history that not only highlighted our beauty, but enhanced it with golden healing?
What if the gold that fills in the cracks is our vulnerability, and displaying it to the world so others can see it too? Or what if it’s something else altogether?
Would you be willing to uncover the gold that holds you together?
If the Japanese can make broken vessels whole again with care, dedication and attention to detail, I think we can challenge ourselves to mend our broken pieces too, and show our true, natural beauty – imperfections and all, to the world.
What do you think?
