Kintsugi
My eyes found her right away, “what a lovely, pink, little pipe”. I thought as I reached into the kiln, and grabbed her still warm from the firing. I held her in my hand and rolled her back and forth admiring my handiwork. Then it hit me, as my thumb moved it’s position from her carb hole. I let out an exasperated sigh at the realization that I didn’t scraped away the glaze, and her carb hole was plugged with a clear hard glaze. Essentially leaving this beautiful creature flawed, and useless. One tiny careless mistake and her whole future change.
~Now this might sound dramatic as this is an inanimate object, but I like to think the objects I create go out into the world to live a wonderful life in a new home. So I became somewhat devastated at this turn of events. I sadly placed her on a shelf above my work station where she spent her days watching me create. I would often look up at her as I worked, or maybe she was watching down on me. Regardless she was a consistent part of my studio practice, and my thoughts would often stray her direction. One day I was making a batch of critter hitters, and I thought I should try and recreate her! This lovely feminine creature right above my head. At least one version of her deserves a different life. As I was making this new pipe, I had the thought that she just wasn’t as cool, that she wasn’t giving off the same vibes. So I paused and reached out and grabbed the OG feminine piece from my shelf, and thought, “she is quite the gangster, I don’t actually think I can recreate her energy,” and it hit me. I don’t want to. I need to respect this piece for what she is. Her filled carb is her beauty mark!
In ceramics there is an art practice called Kinstugi. Which means joining with gold. It is an art technique that is used to repair broken pottery, it is also a way of thinking. Rather than discarding pieces of a broken ceramic object, the fragments are adhered back together and the cracks are adorned with gold. The damage is not hidden, it is instead highlighted. It represents the idea that beauty can be found in imperfection. And that my friends is was I did, I iced her out.
