Kintsugi and the Art of Imperfection
Emily Apuzzo Hopkins | June 21, 2020
When I was a kid I remember my mother had a ceramic dish that had been cracked and broken. Instead of throwing it away, she kept it. The clean freak in me couldn’t stand it. Why would we keep trash in the house? It’s broken and it should be thrown away.
What I didn’t know at the time was that my mother had been doing some research and had come across the Japanese art of kintsugi. If you are unfamiliar, it is a technique for repairing pottery in which you mend the areas of breakage with gold lacquer. The result of her research? A fixed piece of pottery and beautifully imperfect piece of art.
Fast forward to a 24-year-old version of me. That girl so wrapped up in pleasing others and being perfect eventually checked herself into the psychiatric facility at the hospital. I was cracked, I was broken, and I wanted to be cast aside like the refuse I believed myself to be at the time.
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, I picked up the tiny shattered pieces and learned my own version of kintsugi. I talked about my experience with friends, a therapist, and myself - filling each crack in with a sparkling lacquer. I began to find the power within the art of my own imperfection.
I’m 36 now and I think back to that time twelve years ago with a fondness. I am so incredibly thankful for that having happened to me because I learned how to self-care and empathize with those around me who find themselves suffering the same anxieties I imposed upon myself for so long.
I handle life’s challenges well now because I have been broken. I tell of my experience any time I see someone in need of a shared vulnerability. The cracks are there and sometimes they are quite visible. I have chosen to fill them with gold - bringing light to the depths and speak the name of that shame before it becomes empowered by the darkness.
As I continued my own research about kintsugi in preparation for this piece, I found myself a little stuck to find the perfect way to wrap this up. (I know, I have clearly learned nothing.) And then I found it… wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi loosely means “the acceptance of imperfection”; other translations include “impermanent and incomplete”.
So, as I lift my paintbrush of gold away from this piece, I accept that incompleteness - that imperfection - now. Because it’s all quite beautiful really.
