Make and Create: Kintsugi Healing Evening

About Make and Create: Kintsugi Healing Evening

The Japanese art of Kintsugi literally means Golden (Kin) Joinery (Tsugi).  It is an ancient method of fixing broken ceramics or glass using gold lacquer, which seeks to highlight rather than hide the imperfections at the joins - and in doing so, creates something which is arguably more beautiful than the original piece.

I'm a GP with a special interest in mental heatlh, and one of the driving ideas behind Make and Create is to encourage people to use creativity as a tool to manage mental health issues. 

When I came across Kintsugi, I felt instantly drawn to the powerful metaphor this technique evoked, and started to think about how it could be applied to the human experience. 

In Kintsugi, the mended bowl is never the same again, yet it is still a bowl, and still beautiful, if not more so, due to its unique golden lines, tracing and highlighting where the break occurred.  Such is the human capacity for growth after trauma.  We are forever changed by the experience, and we lose parts of ourselves along the way.  Yet through this trauma and pain, we grow, often into something more beautiful than before. 

Let us highlight our scars with gold, for they are what make us unique.  

In this hands on workshop, we will use a modern method of Kintsugi to serve as a medium to explore and discuss our own individual stories, of the scars we carry, the hardships we have faced, and how exactly we came to be who we are today.  

Participants will be guided by me, through a Kintsugi healing ceremony. The bowl is wrapped in Japanese fabric, then broken with a single blow of the hammer.  This represents the trauma.  We will sit for a moment with the broken pieces, and reflect on what this means to us.  Then, we will begin to rebuild.  Epoxy glue is mixed with gold metallic powder, and applied to the broken shards of pottery, to slowly piece our broken bowl back together.

The Kintsugi bowl we make in the session will serve as a permanent reminder of our incredible ability to flourish in the face of adversity.  

The Kintsugi evening is a safe space. You do not have to participate in sharing stories. You do not have to even have a story to share. Simply come, sit, break, heal, absorb.  However, know that if you do choose to share, your story will be received with love, warmth and respect.