As I approach the workbench, I look at the perfectly formed small pottery bowl in my hand. It feels wrong, but I do as I’m told: I cover it with a cloth and hit it with a hammer. Once I’ve successfully broken the bowl into four even pieces, I’ll be spending the next two hours glueing them back together.

Why? I’m at a kintsugi workshop, which teaches the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold.

Roughly translated as ‘joining with gold’ (‘kin’ means gold and ‘tsugi’ means join), kintsugi promotes the idea that you can create something even more beautiful from something that’s broken. It taps into the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which is the idea of finding beauty in imperfection, even highlighting flaws instead of hiding them.

The art form dates back thousands of years, although its exact origins are unknown. The most popular theory is that it was popularised in Japan in the 15th century, during the reign of Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. It’s said that when Ashikaga sent a cracked tea bowl to China to be repaired, he was disappointed with the unsightly metal staples used to fix it. So, he asked local Japanese craftsmen to find a more aesthetically pleasing method of repairing the broken bowl, and kintsugi was born.

But in recent years, kintsugi has been popularised in the UK, thanks to artists like Brandon Le who run kintsugi workshops.

“The people who come to my workshop are curious about other parts of the world. They come with an open mindset to learn about the philosophy of kintsugi,” says Le. “By showing them that being broken is beneficial for growth, people start to see the bowl as themselves.”

Le was the first person to teach the techniques of kintsugi in the UK, and it’s one of his workshops that I attended. While I was familiar with the concept of kintsugi, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the class. If anything, I was worried it might be a bit boring to spend two hours glueing pottery back together, but I was wrong.

Kintsugi is a simple but precise process that involves applying just the right amount of epoxy resin to the broken edges of the pottery before carefully joining the pieces together so they perfectly line up. Then, it’s onto the fun part of flicking and brushing on the gold powder – around the bowl I went until I had a perfectly imperfect piece of pottery in front of me.

It’s scientifically proven that crafting and creating art reduces cortisol (the body’s stress hormone) levels. It can also help alleviate mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, as well as improve self-confidence and creativity.

Despite knowing that, I was surprised at how relaxing and mindful I found the process. It slowed my mind down in a way I’ve never managed to achieve through meditation, yoga or any other ‘mindful’ relaxation techniques.

Even other crafts I regularly enjoy, such as pottery and knitting, often come with a point of frustration, and I’ve been known to throw knitting needles and clay across the room in frustration.

But the precision required for kintsugi meant I was forced to stay calm, physically and mentally. I had to fully commit to the process and be completely in the moment if I wanted to create the ‘thin and elegant’ gold lines I was told to aim for.

Even better, because the whole point of kintsugi is to embrace imperfection, that pressure to do it perfectly that I often experience with crafting was completely absent from the process.

“The majority of people do feel relaxed when doing kintsugi,” says Le. “I think people enjoy my workshop because it’s like a guided meditation or yoga – all they need to do is switch off from work and focus on what’s in front of them.”

Achieving a peaceful state of mind without having to sit still, keep quiet or close my eyes? That’s the type of meditation I can get on board with.

Images: Adobe