Kintsugi: A Timeless Art for a Fractured World
How the Ancient Practice of Kintsugi Repair Offers a Moral Compass for Our Times
By Morty Bachar, ceramic artist, art restorer, and founder of Lakeside Pottery Studio | April 10, 2025
Tile made by Andru Eron, Tile Murals Artist
In an era where division, cruelty, and indifference often dominate the headlines, the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi repair, mending broken pottery with gold, offers a powerful metaphor for healing a fractured society. At a time when our government feels morally broken and communities increasingly divided, Kintsugi’s philosophy of restoration, resilience, and reverence for imperfection stands in quiet defiance.
As a ceramic and Kintsugi artist, I’ve come to see this practice not just as a method of repair, but as a philosophy of resilience, a worldview that honors brokenness, sees potential in damage, and insists on empathy in an age that too often celebrates disposability and suppresses dissent.
The Urgency of Kintsugi in a Fractured World
With nearly two decades of experience and thousands of Kintsugi restorations created for individuals, institutions and world leaders, I’ve been entrusted with more than broken objects - I’ve been invited into stories. Stories of loss, perseverance, love, and memory. Each repair carries the silent testimony of courage, grief, and the human instinct to heal. These encounters have shaped not only my understanding of the craft but of the deeper reasons why people seek restoration: not merely to fix what was broken, but to give form to resilience, to make visible the invisible work of transformation.
In a world splintered by war, climate upheaval, social unrest, and personal hardship, the ancient art of Kintsugi offers more than restoration, it offers a way forward. Once a quiet technique, it has become a symbolic act of resistance, a moral stance, a quiet rebellion against a culture that discards what it deems damaged.
Kintsugi teaches us to celebrate imperfection, to honor damage, not to hide it, but to reveal its beauty. In these fractured times, it’s not just relevant, it’s essential. It speaks a language the world urgently needs to hear..
What Is Kintsugi?
Kintsugi, meaning "golden joinery," is the centuries-old Japanese technique of mending broken pottery with lacquer and powdered gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, it highlights them, telling the story of the object’s breakage and resilience with reverence.
Each piece becomes unique, not despite its flaws, but because of them. It becomes stronger, more beautiful, and more meaningful, much like a person or society that has survived trauma and chosen to heal.
Why Kintsugi Matters More Than Ever?
WWe are conditioned to hide our wounds and present a flawless front. In a world that prizes perfection and disposability, broken things whether objects, relationships, or communities are often cast aside.
But Kintsugi offers a powerful alternative: it asks us to value brokenness, to mend what’s broken with care, and to recognize the beauty in transformation.
As a ceramic artist and restorer, I see Kintsugi as more than a technique. It’s a healing art form, one that applies as much to society and the soul as it does to clay. When I hold a broken vessel, I don’t just see fragments. I see a life interrupted, a story marked by rupture, and the potential for renewal.
From Craft to Calling
Lakeside Pottery Studio began with a simple love for form, glaze, and function. In the early days, we focused on creating wheel-thrown bowls, vases, and the subtle beauty of handcrafted ceramics.
But over time, our work evolved, shifting toward something quieter, more intimate: the art of restoring broken pottery. Today, much of the studio’s soul lives in the gold seams of Kintsugi whether we’re repairing a beloved family heirloom or bringing a shattered sculpture back to life.
As a humanist, I believe in the dignity and moral potential of every person. Kintsugi embodies these values. It honors our fragility, reminds us of the power of compassion, and reveals the strength that comes from choosing care over indifference and repair over abandonment.
Kintsugi as a Form of Resistance
To practice Kintsugi today is to resist a culture obsessed with perfection, allergic to vulnerability, and quick to discard what no longer serves. It’s an act of quiet rebellion against systems that marginalize the different, the damaged, and the inconvenient.
In a world that rewards appearances and punishes authenticity, Kintsugi dares to say: what is broken still belongs.
This is not just restoration art. It is refusal—refusal to believe that cracks must be hidden. In today’s political landscape where lies are currency and justice is often compromised, Kintsugi speaks with quiet, golden authority.
It says:
- You are not defined by what broke you.
- You are shaped by how you choose to heal.
Each piece repaired in our studio is a protest against despair, a luminous act of hope in the face of indifference. It stands in direct opposition to a world that has become disposable, deceptive, and detached.
Kintsugi insists on empathy.
It honors truth.
It elevates imperfection.
And in doing so, it reclaims something sacred:
the dignity of the human story, fractures and all.
A Thread Across Faiths
For those who follow an origin-based religion, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or others, the philosophy behind Kintsugi echoes the spiritual call at the heart of all sacred teachings: to embrace humility, to seek wholeness, to repair what has been broken.
The Hebrew concept of Tikkun Olam, the Christian practice of grace and redemption, the Islamic principle of mercy and renewal, and the Buddhist embrace of suffering as a path to enlightenment all point toward a shared moral compass. They ask believers not to discard the broken but to heal with compassion, see beauty in imperfection, and transform wounds into wisdom.
Kintsugi, though rooted in Japanese culture, offers a spiritual metaphor that transcends borders. It reminds us that healing is holy work and that restoration of self, of society, of our shared humanity, is sacred.
Repairing the Fractures of a Broken Society
The erosion of social programs, the denial of climate realities, and the neglect of the vulnerable are not isolated failures - they are symptoms of a deeper moral collapse. These choices abandon the core values of empathy, justice, and shared responsibility. They reflect a culture that, like a shattered vessel, has forgotten how to hold what matters most. This is the suffering America, a nation grappling with broken promises, fractured identities, and fading empathy.
From the marginalization of LGBTQ+ and transgender individuals to the silencing of diverse voices through book bans and the persistence of racial inequity, we are witnessing the deliberate deepening of societal cracks. Those already at the margins are being pushed further out discarded by systems meant to protect, and erased by policies that reward only the unbroken.
Kintsugi teaches us that brokenness is not the end. It is the beginning of transformation. We must apply this ethic not just in pottery, but in how we govern, listen, and coexist.
To restore our shared humanity, we must choose:
- Repair over rejection
- Equity over exclusion
- Truth over silence
This is not only a political challenge, it is a moral calling. Just as a pot mended with gold becomes more beautiful and resilient, so can a society that chooses to honor its wounds and heal them with care.
What Can We Do?
No action is too small when done with compassion. Each of us has the power to contribute to repair:
- Support organizations that provide trauma care, mental health services, and legal aid to those most affected by injustice
- Donate and volunteer our time and resources where they are most needed
- Amplify voices too often silenced
- Influence religious leaders and organizations to uphold the moral heart of their teachings, compassion, justice, and the dignity of all people
- Listen with openness and humility
- Show up physically, emotionally, and consistently
- Educate ourselves and others on histories, systems, and truths often overlooked
- Vote with intention
- Write to our representatives and demand justice
- Stand with the marginalized in both word and deed
These are all acts of repair every one of them a step toward healing the world and affirming our shared humanity.
A Path Forward
Whether it’s a bowl broken by accident, a sculpture cracked by time, or a world broken by greed and hate, Kintsugi reminds us that all things can be mended and not just mended but made more beautiful and stronger. This is not merely restoration. It is transformation.
It’s why I still feel a surge of reverence when I apply gold into the cobalt blue fractures of a crystalline vessel. That moment, for me, holds the weight of everything I believe:
- That truth matters.
- That kindness matters,
- That we are never beyond repair
We must be free to be who we want or are meant to be, embraced for our differences, and free to express ourselves so long as our voices do no harm to anyone or anything. In this space of respect and healing, Kintsugi becomes more than art; it becomes a way of life.
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in" - Leonard Cohen
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