Sketchplanations

Explaining one thing a week in a sketch

Kintsugi: A bowl repaired with kintsugi with bright gold seams visible next to a flower

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is the repair of a ceramic item, perhaps a bowl or vase, with a bright gold seam. Like wabi sabi, kintsugi reflects a view that wear and use of an object adds value rather than detracts. Rather than try to hide the past damage and the repair instead it is celebrated and enhanced. A bowl repaired with kintsugi might be seen as more valuable than one that had never been broken.

An ebook might reload the same every time. A book, instead, accumulates its previous use in its pages and appearance — the slight bend in the pages, discoloration from fingerprints or sunlight, creases in the spine at frequently visited pages, a pencil mark here and there. The book itself hints at the story of its own life. A well-thumbed secondhand book can be a beautiful thing.

You may have noticed some modern kintsugi in Kylo Ren's helmet.

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