Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pots.
It’s fine to start with – it’s about mending broken pots, embracing the imperfections, adding to the history of the object and making it more beautiful. It can be extended to include personal qualities like working with your faults and bouncing back from adversity. Broken items are put back together and the repairs are highlighted in gold.
In Japan it is an ancient art form.
In the hands of the west it has become a handicraft, the philosophy has been cheapened and it is now possible to do courses and buy kits. I checked with one of the courses. Step One of the course is to break a pot, which does not seem true to the original intention (though there were accusations of collectors doing this in Japan in previous centuries). It is also possible to buy kits, one of which gave me a moment of amusement. The feedback indicated that one of the tea bowls in the kit had arrived broken, but went on to point out that this saved a job. Probably the only time an item broken in transport has been well received.
I’m not knocking it, because it can still produce a lovely and artistic piece of work, but I am pointing out that if you are happy with that, don’t dress it up. And if you want to be true to the spirit of kintsugi, don’t break a pot on purpose. Meanwhile, I got a poem out of it. I may get another. Released from the tyranny of submissions deadlines I find I can, once again, write. Definitely time for a rethink.
This is a haibun which mentions kintsugi, though only in small way. More of it is about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and being married. And, of course, specifically about being married to a woman who stabbed herself in the jugular vein with a piece of broken plant pot because she wouldn’t ask for help. I originally posted a link to it from this post so if you remember it, sorry for being repetitive.
Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940)
A Necklace of Thorns
Despite their fame, their paintings and their place in history, Diego and Frida (we are on first name terms in my imagination) still had to chat about the weather, and bicker about who forgot to buy more milk for breakfast. I imagine the weather was mostly sunny, and that it was Diego who forgot the milk. With his affairs and all those frescoes, it must have been difficult to fit the shopping in.
My wife’s throat, spiked with black sutures, is less inflamed today. I check each morning, trying not to let my worries show. Across the toast crumbs, she reminds me that we need more bread today, and I have to paint the garage doors this spring. For a moment my mind flits to a glorious picture of doors featuring Leon Trotsky and Emiliano Zapata against a backdrop of moustachioed revolutionaries. My wife suggests we stick with green.
today
she has her stitches out
I joke I will buy
gold paint to mend the scar
shared history
First Published cho 22.1 (2026)
Zapata and Trotsky seemed to disappear when I wanted them.
I love everywhere this went, only my mind can’t decide which to comment upon.
I love the idea of conversations. I have used dialogue occasionally in poems. I never thought about imagining dialogue of famous persons. Hmm
I agree on the strangeness of breaking something on purpose for art. I have had similar thoughts about collage and how it is presented sometimes online.
I was inspired by kintsugi when the lid of my cookie jar just fell apart one day. I was going to pitch it and Hubs said, ‘can’t you glue it.’ ?
An imagined conversation between famous people – I’m still not sure where that came from, or why it was those two. It was just one of those things that happens.
Same with the kintsugi – a notification about the job popped up and it all appeared. I’d had vague thoughts of kintsugi before and they just came out.
My wife once contacted a local pottery to see about buying broken pots to use in art projects and was told that they didn’t sell such stuff as there is a health and safety concern (and they already had a contract to sell it for further processing).
At that point you start to see why people have to break good stuff.
I enjoyed the creativity. It really made me think
Thank you,, though by looking at your blog I deduce that you are thinking already. 🙂
Nicest thing you could say
Can you say, ‘overthinking’? haha
Overthinking is merely thinking about it several ways round. 🙂
I love the whole thought process here. also going to overthink how something goes from art to handicraft …
It’s a strange process. Until the Linkedin notification popped up I was vaguely aware of kintsugi but hadn’t really considered it as a mainstream activity requiring pots to be broken. 🙂
A wonderful post. Who could forget Julia’s horrific injury? The haibun is an excellent vehicle for the link with Kintsugi, and you do well to encapsulate its true meaning
Thank you Derrick. I was fortunate to be sent the link by Linkedin (which I keep thinking of discontinuing) as it sparked up another poem and this post.
I really love “My wife suggests we stick with green”. It summarises everything.
🙂 I was amazed at how many shades of green there were when we had to make the final decision.
Mrs T opted for something of the same Japanese style of repair when mending my woolly jumpers with contrasting and colourful darns to make it plain that the jumpers had been mended.
I liked the dramatic haibun. Did you stick with green?
Yes, we stuck with green. It was easier for the undercoating. Can’t quite remember what shade it was – there are so many. Japanese mending featured on the Great British Sewing Bee once.