Behind the Object
Behind the Object: The Kintsugi Bowl
Broken once, repaired better: the documented life of a Mashiko stoneware bowl.
The bowl was thrown in Mashiko in the 1950s, broke in the 1990s, and became more valuable in 2023, when a documented kintsugi restoration traced its fracture in gold lacquer.
Kintsugi is often romanticised into a metaphor and stripped of its craft. The reality: urushi lacquer, weeks of curing between stages, and gold applied only at the end, only where structure already holds. Bad kintsugi is glue with glitter. Good kintsugi is joinery.
The restoration invoice ships with the bowl. We consider it part of the object.
