Lessons Learned From My First Kintsugi Project

They all ended up being metaphors.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with glue mixed with gold or silver powder. The principle is redemptive, and simple: Take something broken → mend it in a way that makes it beautiful = transform it beyond what it was before.

I accidentally discovered this art form through two of my favorite music artists.

English rock band Nothing But Thieves incorporate beautiful gold-mended seams into the album art of both the standard and deluxe versions of Broken Machine (2017).

American rock band Death Cab for Cutie named their 8th album Kintsugi (2015). The album’s lyrical themes are a great fit for the idea of kintsugi — lead singer Ben Gibbard penned the album when starting a new chapter after his divorce.

So, I knew of kintsugi, but had never tried it. I figured I would if the chance arose, but it never did. That is, until a few weeks ago.

At a recent work summit, our sister team distributed kintsugi kits. The prevailing workplace message is a good one — let’s learn from our mistakes, and treat ourselves and others with kindness.

As I started the kit, I rotated beautiful images of finished kintsugi pieces in my mind. Ahhh… Every example piece I had seen on Google or in person had perfect, clean lines… gorgeous texture, incredible depth… That’s what I’d be making, right?

Wrong. In today’s blog I’ll tell you each way this sweet craft went wrong, yet how the results still ended up reinforcing the valuable lesson of kintsugi.

I Reduced My Bowl to a Fine Mist

Critical to kintsugi is the assumption that the shattered pieces of your pottery are in salvageable condition. How else can you repair what was broken?

The kintsugi kit came with a small bowl and cloth. You’re meant to fold the bowl in the cloth many times, then strike it against a hard surface like the floor.

The instructions urge you to be gentle. So I gently the bowl-and-cloth combo on the ground and beat it several times with a hammer.

Whoops. When I unfolded my cloth, I had essentially powderized the middle out of my bowl. My cloth now contained six or seven regular, workable puzzle pieces and a pinch of crushed porcelain.

Great, was my first thought. I ruined it forever.

I Cannot Let Glue Dry

I simply cannot sit still long enough to let my nails dry. I always end up doing something that requires fingertips, so the nails end up smudged.

Smudges are a quick fix, and no one notices anyways. However, bringing this same philosophy to the kintsugi kit quickly caused problems.

The kit requires you to mix epoxy, hardener, and the signature gold powder. As I began pressing the larger pieces together, I realized I immediately wanted to set them down and walk away.

It took me close to 48 hours to piece together the main outline of the small bowl. I kept getting distracted when pressing the pieces together, which caused the bond to sag— especially when trying to hold together multiple pieces at once.

I Got Fingerprints All Over the Bowl

The rotating, pristine kintsugi craft in my mind was starting to feel pretty far from reality. I was accidentally putting my fingers in drying epoxy, and getting fingerprints all over the porcelain. Plus, my glue lines were thick and dropping, nothing like the perfect clean lines of other people’s craft…

If it looks like I slopped on the epoxy with a bucket, I practically did. Each time I returned to the bowl to finish it, I mixed entirely way too much gold-epoxy-hardener. I felt over-obligated to use as much as possible to not waste it, and this is the result.

Once more I found myself thinking, maybe kintsugi is for everyone else, except me. Maybe I am the one moron on the planet who can’t figure out how to piece this back together.

In Conclusion…

I’m finally done! I pieced the bowl back together as best as I could. Where I had smashed a hole, I filled with gold epoxy.

Sure, it looks a little janky with the misaligned pieces, fingerprints, and globs of epoxy but… hey, I tried.

I now have a relatively serviceable bowl to hold my guitar picks. Is it the most perfect bowl, the most beautiful bowl? No. But it is my bowl, and I put it back together with my own two hands. And that is just fine for me.

Thanks for reading,

Darlene