Kintsugi is a decorative way of restoring broken pottery.  It is an ancient Japanese technique that has been developed over the years.  It involves gluing broken pieces of pottery back together with lacquer and then decorating the cracks with gold. 

The philosophy behind Kintsugi is that everything and all of us are broken in some way.  And that being broken is not a bad thing. 

In fact, imperfection in all things gives character and can be the beginning of something new. 

This is connected to the Japanese tradition of wabi-sabi, which centers on the imperfection and impermanence of all things in life. 

The wabi-sabi philosophy was central t the development of traditional Japanese raku pottery.  If you want to know more about this ancient tradition check out the link at thePotteryWheel.com - traditional Japanese raku pottery.

Kintsugi celebrates what is broken and makes something new and beautiful from what has been damaged.  It’s seen as a metaphor for restoring the broken parts of ourselves too.

In traditional Kintsugi, the broken parts of a piece of pottery are glued back together using a lacquer that is made from the sap of a Japanese tree.  The lacquer can take months to dry and harden before it’s decorated with gold dust.

This time-consuming traditional approach has been adapted more recently, and potters will often glue the piece back together using two-part epoxy glue.  This dries in a matter of minutes rather than months!

The join is then dusted with gold powder and polished to compress the gold dust firmly into the lacquer or glue.  As such, the healed fractures in the pot become a beautiful golden feature of the restored piece. You can find the powder on websites like Amazon.

Reference -  thepotterywheel.com -