Mended And Beautiful

by Maria Wuerker

One of the most impactful museum exhibits that I have ever attended was at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, featuring pieces of pottery repaired through kintsugi—a practice that emphasizes imperfections in pottery pieces by outlining cracks in gold lacquer in order to highlight the individual beauty of their lives as objects of use. The idea that a broken thing can become both whole again and more beautiful due to its breaking is one that resonates with me. Particularly in a society where perfection is valued so highly, there is comfort to be found in objects that are made all the more special by their long lives. Similarly, people go through life brushing against each other, leaving residual traces. How many little things do we do every day because of a person who has touched our lives in some way? These traces can be positive or negative, long forgotten remnants of old friendships swept away in the tides of life or reactions tinged by past hurts. It is easy to want to erase the negatives, to forget loss or betrayal or heartache, but when we take the time to learn from them, they, too, can become golden parts of who we are.

Kintsugi is a Japanese method for repairing broken vessels. The practice is said to have originated in the 15th century, at the very end of the medieval period. As legend has it, the Japanese emperor at the time broke his favorite tea bowl and sent it to China to be repaired. When his bowl was returned, it had been repaired with metal staples, which he found to ruin the aesthetic nature of the piece. He commissioned his craftsmen to develop a process that would preserve the beauty of a piece whilst repairing it in a way that would allow it to still be of use. From this, the practice of kintsugi was developed and was considered to not only preserve the beauty and functionality of a piece, but also added to its aesthetic appeal. The process consists of a piece of pottery being repaired first with lacquer, and then once the lacquer sets, the crack is outlined with gold. This practice is thought to be an extension of the concept of Wabi Sabi, which preaches appreciation of the beauty of imperfect, impermanent, incomplete, modest, and humble objects. Kintsugi reached the height of its popularity during the 16th and 17th centuries and soon became regarded not only as a method of repair, but also as an art medium that added to the visual beauty of any piece. Some artisans began breaking pieces on purpose in order to perform kintsugi on them and sell them as a more valuable work of art.

From a modern lens, this practice might seem strange, especially in that an emperor would feel the need to fix a ceramic vessel rather than simply replacing it. However, the Japanese prioritized the value of the individual object more emphatically at the time, and it was not uncommon for someone of his status to seek to repair an object that was of great artistic merit. Wabi Sabi as an ideology rejects perfection and instead elevates the value of authenticity and imperfection. This differs greatly from the values that are most prevalent in our (Western) culture today, most of which are a direct result of the rise of capitalism and the concept of disposable possessions. We have developed a culture that idealizes perfection and often seems to accept nothing less from both items and people and often marginalizes and even demonizes individuals who are seen as “broken”. But what have we lost in adopting such a harsh philosophy? What can we learn from a philosophy that provides room for an object or individual’s history and finds value in it? Utilizing the ideology of Wabi Sabi allows us to view something breaking not as an end, but rather as a part of its story that can only add to its beauty and value. It is a more forgiving philosophy that allows for individuals or objects to change over the course of their lifetimes and for a broken thing (or person) to maintain its beauty and integrity in its new state of mend.

Why is it that we feel the need to erase certain parts of ourselves, hide our bruises and soften our jagged edges? Why do we feel that our old hurts may be too much for others to handle, something that detracts from our appeal as a friend or a lover rather than something that we have learned from and which has made us all the wiser? To me, an important aspect of this is our culture’s unfounded expectation of perfection whilst also allowing us little time to prioritize ourselves. From this, we can see the ways that society pushes us to excel in portraying outer beauty rather than inner—makeup is marketable. Personal growth? Not so much.

Society has taught us that we need to buy things in order to make ourselves more appealing. It has also taught us that we are our output. Thus, we turn outward instead of inward, attempting to create facades that will invite the least criticism and will allow us to appear as close to perfect as we can. We hide our blemishes, we hide our hurts, we act like somebody we are not. Why are our looks, our personalities, and our experiences objects for mass consumption? What would happen if we spent the energy we put towards acting “perfect” into fully healing ourselves, learning to love the whole of who we are not in spite of but through our past experiences?

There is a lovely parallel to be found in the practice of kintsugi and the practice of life itself. One of the scariest parts of being alive (and one of the most rewarding) is the act of opening yourself up to others, leaving yourself vulnerable. Loving people means you can get hurt by people, but it also means that you are allowing yourself to be open and to change. Losing people, whether a death, a breakup, or a falling out with a friend, leaves us with cracks. The process of healing is about learning to love those cracks, filling them with all of the lessons you’ve learned from that person. All of the experiences they brought into your life, all of the songs you sang together that you’ll sing again someday without feeling so sad, all of the games you played and the laughs you shared will one day be a shining golden part of who you are. Whether it be from positive or negative experiences, when we allow ourselves the space to heal properly our scars can become our greatest achievements, our most important lessons in who we want to be and how we treat others and ourselves. When we accept our cracks, we allow ourselves to be more whole.