This vase is part of the Creating Spaces Series

Stoneware Clay, Underglaze, India Ink, Kintsugi

Hearts locked tight

like our houses,

gated like our

communities.

Silent streets greet

the sojourner,

the wanderer,

the orphaned

the newcomer,

the lost.

But we are called,

called into mending,

called into yobitsugi,

called into friendship,

into hospitality,

into welcoming

the stranger.

Called into making

space,

into wrapping

The Other

in gold.

There is sacrifice,

a breaking open,

an acknowledgement

of our own cracks.

How beautiful

we could be together.

For it is only

together

that we will find

healing.

Creating Space Series

Creating Space is a series of wheel thrown pieces that incorporate a type of Kintsugi called Yobitsugi as a metaphor for the beautiful and sacrificial work of creating space for “the other” in our lives and in our communities, only to find that we are more beautiful together.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” - Matthew 25:35

What is Kintsugi?

“Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art form of repairing broken tea ware by reassembling ceramic pieces, creates anew the valuable pottery, which now becomes more beautiful and more valuable than the original, unbroken vessel.” - Makoto Fujimura, Art + Faith, 2020.

The word kin in Japanese means “gold” and tsugi means “to reconnect”. Using Urushi (Japanese lacquer) and gold, broken pottery is not only restored, but made new, turning imperfection into defining beauty. It is an apt visual metaphor for the human journey of finding healing & wholeness after trauma and brokenness. We, too, can become new creations.

What is Yobitsugi?

Yobitsugi is a type of Kintsugi that means “calling into mending.” It’s where the Kintsugi method is used to restore a vessel while also introducing fragments of other vessels to fill in the empty spaces. It can be used to help create a metaphor of peace between two warring nations, like the work of Kintsugi Master Nakamura-san who has mended together pottery from North and South Korea as well as other nations in conflict.

Why Creating Space?

Many of us have experienced the precarity of being a stranger at some point. We wait in hope to be welcomed into a new community, to make meaningful and lasting friendships. It’s essential for our survival, but it doesn’t always come. As an English as a Second Language teacher, I’ve witnessed the harm to international students, immigrants, and refugees when no one welcomes or creates space for them in their new communities. It is easy to assume that someone else will do the hard work of reaching out and creating space for them. Unfortunately, we all know what happens when we assume. To criticise “the other” for grouping together for survival and “not integrating well” is to ignore one’s own responsibility of welcoming the stranger. In doing so, we miss a rare and beautiful opportunity for newfound friendship.

For the Pottery Nerds like Me

The handmade vessels call pottery shards into themselves with space cut away to make room for the new piece and are then wrapped in precious metal to hold them fast. The main body of each piece is thrown in cream stoneware clay and then decorated with a white underglaze and blue decals to echo 17th and 18th century pottery found in early European settlements in what is now called Louisbourg, Nova Scotia. English Tin Glazed earthenware, German and French Rhenish Stoneware, and Blue and White Chinese Porcelain are just some examples of the white and blue pottery found at these sites. Of all these, only the Chinese Porcelain was truly white. The others masked the true colour of the clay with white underglaze to mimic the highly prized porcelain. The crackle glaze gives an aged and imperfect quality to the vessel. The fragments are a combination of broken and orphaned pottery from thrift stores and shards found by my friend Wendy behind her home along the Thames River in London, ON.