A Cult Craft
Kintsugi ("golden joinery")
Kintsugi is the Japanese craft of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold dust. I heard about this for the first time today and decided that it had all the necessary qualities to become a cult-encouraged activity.
I love that something broken can be kept and reworked into something beautiful. I currently have some beloved, but broken, pottery items that I just couldn't bring myself to throw away and had stuck in the back corner of a cupboard. Now I know what to do them. I shall repair them as flamboyantly as is possible! (Obviously, the original idea of eventually finishing the mosaic step in the garden is still a possibility. I just haven't got myself to actually go and finish it and in any case peace-in-the-home has grown over half of it.)
Of course, gold dust isn't really in my price range. Alex French Guy Cooking on YouTube has a more inexpensive version using epoxy and paint. (The video. The actual how-to starts at 7:48.)
You still don't have to throw away broken pottery even if you don't intend to take up mosaic or to stick it together with gold-dust-enhanced epoxy. Before I heard about kintsugi, I had already had the idea to use broken bits of pottery to liven up pot plants. Here is a selection from my windowsill:
I hope this gives other cult members some idea of how to turn those sad moments when favourite pottery pieces get broken into a more joyous occasion!
The Cult of Colourful Neutrality
Kintsugi is the Japanese craft of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold dust. I heard about this for the first time today and decided that it had all the necessary qualities to become a cult-encouraged activity.
I love that something broken can be kept and reworked into something beautiful. I currently have some beloved, but broken, pottery items that I just couldn't bring myself to throw away and had stuck in the back corner of a cupboard. Now I know what to do them. I shall repair them as flamboyantly as is possible! (Obviously, the original idea of eventually finishing the mosaic step in the garden is still a possibility. I just haven't got myself to actually go and finish it and in any case peace-in-the-home has grown over half of it.)
Of course, gold dust isn't really in my price range. Alex French Guy Cooking on YouTube has a more inexpensive version using epoxy and paint. (The video. The actual how-to starts at 7:48.)
You still don't have to throw away broken pottery even if you don't intend to take up mosaic or to stick it together with gold-dust-enhanced epoxy. Before I heard about kintsugi, I had already had the idea to use broken bits of pottery to liven up pot plants. Here is a selection from my windowsill:
I hope this gives other cult members some idea of how to turn those sad moments when favourite pottery pieces get broken into a more joyous occasion!
The Cult of Colourful Neutrality
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