Nearly twenty years ago, my friend AJ took a potting course and gave me two bowls she threw. I have treasured and used these bowls over the years. When we "moved house" in January, i.e., rearranged the function of the dining and great rooms , I accidentally broke both pieces. The smaller one was sitting inside the larger one and so they both fell as one. I was heartbroken and bummed.
Several days later, I read about kintsugi in Patti Digh's Your Daily Rock: A Daybook of Touchstones for Busy Lives . Kintsugi is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with "seams of gold." A light bulb went off! I could glue the pieces together and paint the seams with a gold metallic marker - since I didn't have any gold liquid lying around. And so I did!
I like the concept of kinstugi - of embracing and seeing the beauty in imperfection. I have a tendency to sometimes stymie myself when I seek "perfection" in a creative piece I am making. My kinstugi bowl and rock are great incentives for me to embrace the process and move on.
Cheers~
Kintsugi - 金継ぎ