The Art of Cracking

Being seen and the process of kintsugi

A few weeks ago, I texted a friend, “Random, but do you want to come to a kintsugi party?”

“You have a weird life. Also, tell me more.”

Kintsugi, or “golden joinery" is a Japanese art, where broken pottery is repaired with glue and gold. It is thought to go back to the 15th century when a valuable tea cup was broken, and artists were commissioned to repair it.

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I fell in love with the concept while researching for my children’s book about Japan. As the book unfolds, kintsugi plays a part in the story. Spoiler alert—it’s how the Nikko the dragon gets put back together, and when she is unhappy with her golden scars, there is a sweet little moment as Lily Huckleberry highlights the theme—

“The scars show all the adventures you’ve had. What makes you different makes you beautiful.”

I’ve always loved those lines.

From The Adventures of Lily Huckleberry in Japan

For years, Audrey (my co-creator of the Lily series) and I have been wanting to do a kintsugi party, and we finally gathered a few people and made it happen.

After breaking our old pottery, we got to work mixing the epoxy and gold powder, spreading it in the seams to glue the broken parts back together. As our hands filled with sticky gold, we quickly discovered that the process takes longer than expected and gained a new respect for the masters of the art.

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I’d been drawn to the metaphorical layers of kintsugi, but was still amused to find that although we weren't trying, an abundance of reflective statements flowed out of our mouths as we were mending. It began to feel like a version of that bizarre Is It Cake? show where someone designs cakes to look like real objects. This was the Is It Kintsugi or Is It Counseling? edition:

“You can’t control where it breaks.”

“I didn’t think it would take this long.”

“It’s messier than I thought it was going to be.”

“You can’t rush the process—it takes patience.”

Oh, the layers, the delicious layers. And now begins the first of seventy-two posts about the lessons of kintsugi.

I kid, I kid. I’ll keep it contained to one, promise.

As I thought back about the night, one of my favorite parts was the laughter when someone’s dish came apart and crashed onto the table. Often, right when we thought it was dry, one shift caused the whole thing to fracture anew. As the pieces clattered, there was no hiding, no covering it up. It was an obvious cracking. After a mishap, we would begin again—mixing more glue, re-sticking the section, holding the fragment with a little more patience.

Although I hadn’t planned it, the whole endeavor turned into a tactile experience of my recent attempts at risking failure. There’s a learning curve to kintsugi I wasn’t expecting. The video seemed straightforward, and I thought I had enough crafting under my belt to get it right the first time. But, like most things, the only way to find out was to get your hands dirty and try.

Towards the end, I realized I had smudges everywhere and couldn’t clean them until after all the pieces were in place. The mess was obvious. As my pot cracked again and everyone burst into laughter, I couldn’t help but think of how refreshing it was to let people see me fail. No one was judging or mocking, as everyone was up to their elbows in glue and risking failure themselves. It was a simple moment of letting others see my mistakes and laugh at myself as I tried again.

This is not my normal mode of operations when faced with failure. My normal sounds more like—“Moron! How did you not know better? Why are you such an idiot, Jackie? Everyone who has ever said anything mean about you is right—you are stupid.”

It’s a joy to be inside my head.

There’s a lot of reasons for this heap of shame and judgment toward myself, and much of my learning curve of the last years has been digging through the heap. I’ve noticed that in much of American culture, and many of the circles I’ve been in, we’d prefer you to not have any cracks at all. But, should you insist on messing up and needing to be glued back together, you can share your story after the gold has dried, after you’ve made something of your suffering, after you’ve been cleaned up enough for polite society. We love a triumph over tragedy tale, not so much the moments in the middle, the moments where it all falls apart again.

The older I get, the more I crave stories from the middle, from the struggle, from the smudges. I want to know the truth about those moments, how it feels to crack, what puts you back together. Tell me the truth about that, please.

As I collected my smeary, gold filled pieces one more time, I exhaled into the safety of a space safe enough to fail, and to be seen while doing so.

“You can’t control where it breaks.”

“I didn’t think it would take this long.”

“It’s messier than I thought it was going to be.”

“You can’t rush the process—it takes patience.”

Yes indeed.

Yes indeed.

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Want to throw a kintsugi party?

Here’s a short video of the process + supplies needed to begin.

Tips:

• Don’t make too much of the epoxy + gold at once. It dries quickly, so you’ll need to mix more for each seam.

• Nail polish remover will clean up smudges on your piece—wipe it before it’s too dry.

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Connect with me on Instagram: @jackieknapp_

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My kids’ books: find The Adventures of Lily Huckleberry here or here.