jedioffsidetrap’s Reviews > The Art of Kintsugi: Learning the Japanese Craft of Beautiful Repair > Status Update

Can be putting back together as original whole (tomosugi) or replacing bits w/different pieces to create something new (yobitsugi)

Simplest form is filling cracks: need rice glue (or resin epoxy), gold powder, tonoko powder & urushi

Urushi is a high-quality lacquer used in Asia for over 5,000 yrs, in shiny or matte — may cause rash from skin contact so use gloves

Materials:

Rice glue & urushi are the adhesive — can use clear resin epoxy but considered unauthentic

Rice glue is “readily available in art supply stores or online”

Tonoko & jinoko powders used to fill in chips

Gold powder

Kintsugi is offshoot of wabi-sabi & intimately linked with it

Wabi-sabi is Buddhist teaching, accepting impermanence of life& environment— things are imperfect & asymmetrical

Also related to “mushin”— No Mind: we do not form attachments to things since they’re impermanent & ever changing

We can embrace history as we become proud of our imperfections & even scars. It is not a source of shame…it is the reality of our world & we are to value the damage since it increases our own spiritual value— we survived…with that, there is no reason to fear b/c the act of reconstruction makes us far more valuable than we were whole.

So Kintsugi’s process & beliefs accepted in therapeutic treatment

It is an art w/one of the most powerful & resilient beliefs: that we can triumph over catastrophe. It is transformative repair & the goal is to increase its aesthetic value to be better than when the object was new & unbroken

The staples used to hid the imperfection were unattractive; there was no hiding the flaw; the idea to flaunt the flaws transformed the process of pottery restoration into an art form.

Origin in 15c when Ashoka’s Yaoshimasa, a shogun, had tea bowl repaired but it was done with ugly staples: “he sparked a quest for more elegant methods of restoration” (?)