"Alone and silent in his studio he made bowls, open dishes and lidded jars needing a return to touching, holding, marking and moving soft clay. The black vessels show the flux of glaze. The white dishes have been fired without glaze so that each mark is present. He has explained that: ‘Some of these pots are broken and patched on their rims with folded lead and gold; others are mended with gold lacquer. Some hold shards of porcelain.’
His inspiration came from two old Chinese bowls from the Song dynasty that he has in his studio. One patched on the rim with iron, the other with a beautiful thin golden thread running from the rim, repaired using the Japanese art of kintsugi. Kintsugi, which means ‘golden joinery’, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The idea is that by embracing flaws and imperfections, one creates an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. De Waal notes that, ‘Kintsugi is not an art of erasure – the invisible mend, the erasing of a mistake – but rather a way of marking loss.’"
His inspiration came from two old Chinese bowls from the Song dynasty that he has in his studio. One patched on the rim with iron, the other with a beautiful thin golden thread running from the rim, repaired using the Japanese art of kintsugi. Kintsugi, which means ‘golden joinery’, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The idea is that by embracing flaws and imperfections, one creates an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. De Waal notes that, ‘Kintsugi is not an art of erasure – the invisible mend, the erasing of a mistake – but rather a way of marking loss.’"
In
December 2020
I published a review in the Church Times of de Waal's library
of exile, see https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/18-december/books-arts/visual-arts/visual-arts-edmund-de-waal-library-of-exile.
My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton and Anna Sikorska.
My Church of the Month reports include: Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, St Michael and All Angels Berwick, and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.
Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.
I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe, and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.
Other of my writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here.
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Maria McKee - Life Is Sweet.
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