Making Art of The Broken

Kintsugi is a Japanese art form that mends broken pottery. When the broken pieces are glued back together with lacquer, gold is then dusted over the top to draw attention to where the cracks once were. Where it had broken, the journey that the piece had made until now. It gives you a sense of appreciation for what has come before, a sense of beauty for the wounds that an older object carries.

When I found out about this Japanese art form I thought about the trials and mistakes of one's life that shape a person’s character. It is too easy to judge others when we do not agree with their behaviour. What is hard is to look deeper and see that the journey they have been on is different from our own. Just as our life experience has shaped our own views. It too has shaped theirs and cannot be the same as ours. We all have our own truth.

Perhaps we can find beauty in the mistakes and imperfections of others, appreciate that we have our own disagreeable character to some, perhaps even to us, and that, like the Kintsugi pottery, we should dust a little gold over the top of where our cracks are.