What is Kintsugi?

What is Kintsugi?

Kintsugi is the Japanese traditional technique of repairing broken pottery or glass by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer (Urushi) and decorating with gold, silver, or platinum powder. The unique point of Kintsugi is to enjoy the breakage as scenery. The pottery and glass repaired by Kintsugi are valued higher than before repairing.

The material for Kintsugi

• lacquer (Urushi)

Lacquer is sap collected from the trunk of a lacquer tree. It has high adhesive strength and is used as a painting material and glue. For Kintsugi, you use raw lacquer to make rust lacquer and colored lacquer to glue metal powder to pottery.

• rust lacquer (Sabi Urushi)

Rust lacquer is a lacquer paste mixed with fine soil (Tonoko) and water. You use it to fill chips and cracks.

• metal powder

For finishing Kintsugi, you use powdered gold, silver, platinum, tin, or copper.

How to do Kintsugi

Kintsugi has mainly the following four steps.

1. Bond broken pieces with lacquer
2. Fill the chips and cracks with rust lacquer
3. Paint the repaired area with colored lacquer
4. Paint the repaired area with colored lacquer again, sprinkle metal powder before lacquer dry, and dry them

The history of Kintsugi

It is said that repairing broken pottery with lacquer was started in the Jomon period in Japanese prehistory (between 14000-300 BCE). Decorating with metal powder was started from Muromachi Period (1336 to 1573).

The potential of Kintsugi

Kintsugi has a spirit of cherishing a thing for long time. It is necessary for worldwide nowadays. Kintsugi breathes new life into a broken vessel. It accepts wounds and creates new harmony. It is an ultimate circular model and a technique of zero waste as well. Therefore, it is attracting attention overseas in recent years.

Kintsugi workshops have been held in various parts of Japan and online. You can also find a trial kit to try Kintsugi.