Kintsugi Pottery Quotes

Kintsugi is a pottery technique. When something breaks, like a vase, they glue it back together with melted gold. Instead of making the cracks invisible, they make them beautiful. To celebrate the history of the object. What it's been through. And I was just... Thinking of us like that. My heart full of gold veins, instead of cracks.

Did you know that pottery can be repaired with gold?" Kami asked. "Then it's meant to be stronger than before, and more beautiful. Which is awesome, though it seems expensive." Her grandmother had nodded. "Makes sense to me," she said. "Why be broken when you can be gold?

Beauty can transform the fragments of a lost heart into poetry, reconstruct it spiritually, and reimagine brokenness into a new reality. Just as in Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing pottery by embracing its breaks rather than attempting to conceal them, we celebrate its history and acclaim its imperfections. (“Absence of Beauty is like Hell“)

Alice recalled one of the books Dylan had read to her, a collection of Japanese fairytales. In one, a woman artist practiced kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. There'd been an illustration of a woman bent over a pile of broken pottery pieces, laid out to fit together, with a fine paintbrush in her hand, its bristles dipped in gold. It had enchanted Alice, the idea that breakage and repair were part of the story, not something to be disdained or disguised.

Kintsugi is a Japanese art, that takes broken pottery and delicately places it back together by sealing the cracks with gold lacquer. I found myself admiring the metaphor it represents. It reminded me of you. Maybe you feel like you are broken inside, maybe you’re worried that you will disappoint me. Just like this pottery, life will never be perfect, but it can be beautiful. But we have to choose to see the beauty of it, not despite it’s cracks or imperfections but because of it. I get that you may not want to show me the side of you that’s less than perfect, but don’t you see? I don’t want perfect. Perfect is overrated. All I want is you. All that you are. Exactly as you are. I want you to know that I will wait for you, for as long as it takes. Take your time. (but not too long)

In Japanese pottery, there’s an artful form of repair called kintsugi. When a piece of ceramic pottery breaks, rather than trying to restore it to its original condition, the artisan accentuates the fault by using gold to fill the crack. This beautifully draws attention to where the work was broken, creating a golden vein. Instead of the flaw diminishing the work, it becomes a focal point, an area of both physical and aesthetic strength. The scar also tells the story of the piece, chronicling its past experience.

The Japanese art form of kintsugi repairs broken and flawed pottery with gold, silver or platinum. It doesn’t hide the cracks, but embraces it, seeing it as integral to the object’s history, and rebuilds something new.

I'd heard on a podcast once about a Japanese technique for fixing broken pottery, where the artist would mix gold with glue, binding the cracks together and making them glow. I wasn't the distraction, Ellie was saying. The book was, and all the burdens that came with it.

kintsukuroi, or the “golden repair” of something treasured or important that has become cracked or broken. When applied to the repair of ancient and valuable pieces of pottery, the practice becomes kintsugi, or “golden joinery.” The key to this imaginative art appears when the glue used to fill the cracks and join the broken pieces becomes blended with actual gold. After the repairs have been made, the broken vessel becomes more valuable than ever. Metaphorically, kintsugi suggests that

The gold veins on the cover represent the Japanese art of kintsugi, “golden repair,” in which pieces of broken pottery are mended with powdered gold and lacquer, rather than treating the breaks as blemishes to conceal. The technique shows us that although an object cannot be returned to its original state, fragments can be made whole again.

the Japanese art of kintsugi, or “golden joinery,” a method of repairing cracked pottery with a vein of lacquer mixed with gold or silver. A plausible origin story dates this art to the fifteenth century, when Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa broke his favorite tea bowl and sent it back to China to be repaired. It was returned with ugly metal staples, prompting the shogun to order his craftsmen to find a more aesthetic means of repair. I love the idea that an accident can be an occasion to make something more delightful, not less so.

before I could speak. “It’s a book on how to do kintsugi. It’s a Japanese method of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold.

Now, almost every week, we talk about kintsugi pottery. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing a broken bowl by inlaying gold or other precious metals. The new bowl is stronger than the old one. The scars are the design. Your attention is drawn to the cracks and how they are mended. That is what you’re supposed to see. The beauty is in the brokenness.

In his TedX Talk, Gary Lewandowski explains the concept of kintsugi. It refers to a Japanese art form in which broken pottery is put back together using precious metals like gold and silver. The repair pottery is often more beautiful than it was before it was damaged. Lewandowski encourages us to see heartbreak as art break. It’s also a philosophy which treats damage and its repairs as an opportunity - something to take advantage of, not to conceal.

...I was reading that, in some cultures, they don't throw away a piece of pottery just because it breaks. They pour gold into the cracks, and the piece is even more beautiful than it was before it broke." He turned his head and stared into me. "You broke our marriage. I'm hoping, after all this, we can end up with something beautiful.