In the early years of my marriage I always threw broken china away because I wanted everything to be perfect. Over the years I've grown to love cracked and broken things. My marriage is in tact (in case you wondered:-) and I have drawers and bowls full of fragments from china, glass, wood, shells and other natural gatherings.
I love this poem about broken things by Alice Walker.
I will keep broken
things:
the big clay pot
with raised iguanas
chasing their
tails; two
of their wise
heads sheared off;
I will keep broken things:
the old slave market basket brought to my door by Mississippi a jagged
hole gouged
in it's sturdy dark
oak side.
I will keep broken things:
The memory of
those long delicious night swims with you;
I will keep broken things:
In my house
there remains an honored shelf
on which i will keep broken things.
Their beauty is
they need not ever be "fixed."
I will keep your wild
free laughter though it is now missing its
reassuring and
graceful hinge.
I will keep broken things:
Thank you
So much!
I will keep broken things.
I will keep you:
pilgrim of sorrow.
I will keep myself.
- Alice Walker, "I will keep broken things"
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with a mixture of lacquer and powdered gold or silver. The philosophy behind this reparation is that things should not be discarded just because they are broken. There is beauty in broken, cracked and chipped objects.
Mary Ann Lehrer Plansky stitches exquisite fragments inspired by ancient cloths, the antiquities of forgotten tribes, archaeological artifacts and ruins. My heart races when I read the stories behind her pieces. Do yourself a favour and visit Mary Ann's blog here.
Jan Goodey has created an intriguing ceramic series, "The Museum of Conjecture."
" ....every broken thing is an opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation. Putting the pieces together in a new way, or for a new purpose or by adding new or different parts encourages a "Science of Incomplete" to emerge." - Jan Goodey