Kitsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. Instead of just being a way to save items that might be destined for the landfill, Kitsugi is based on the ideas that flaws and imperfections should be embraced.
The re-use/recycle moment is growing and Kitsugi fits in perfectly with the idea that even non-perfect items can be useful (and beautiful). If you look online, you can find many beautiful examples of Kitsugi and Amazon and Etsy sell readymade Kitsugi kits.
I had two items that I wanted to try to “kitsugi.” (I don’t think kitsugi is a verb but I’m not sure what else to call it:) One was a 3-tiered serving piece that had cracks in the bottom piece. This piece was a good choice for the kitsugi kit.
The second really isn’t traditional kitsugi because I did not use gold to make repairs but I still salvaged something that was headed to the trash. In the case of the planter seen below, the wind blew it over and it broke into about 6 pieces. I glued them back together but needed to cover the cracks that didn’t quite close so decided to use what I have easy access to and that’s shells. Yes, it’s a bit strange but it works great again and I didn’t have to replace it!
Before you throw out your next broken thing, imagine how great it would look patched with gold (or even shells!) Like many things in life, broken can still be beautiful!
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