Kintsugi Classes
Su and I attended a class last Sunday. It was the first of two she signed us up to learn about Kintsugi or the Japanese art of repairing pottery and glass. The second lesson will be on the coming Sunday.
About seven weeks ago, I brought back in my gym bag some glass or crystal wares left to us by our late dear old friend Ko Ying. I had received them in neatly packed bubble plastic wrappers. But no sooner had we unwrapped them than I found that the most precious item – a crystal wine decanter – had a chipped mouth, with the broken pieces still in the wrapper. There was a hairline fracture around the neck, which suggested that the damage could have been inflicted during wrapping or transport. The decanter was meant to be a memorabilia rather than for utility, but still, we would try to repair it if we can.
Su had heard of the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and china wear. She had a young relative who had attended classes with his spouse because they had something valuable damaged. After some quick desktop research, she found a lead which led her to an institution which, while not offering repair services in situ as such, had been running classes at Tai Kwun for such repairs as an art, or at least as an interest or for leisure. There and then, she signed both of up for two classes on two consecutive Sundays, which were not cheap and time consuming.
Classes are conducted at a studio at Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road in Central, from 2:30 pm and last three hours each. We took a bus from Ricci Hall after the 12:30 pm Sunday Mass and walked down the steps beside the Central Elevator to Tai Kwun, arriving at the studio in good time. Enders Wong was the Master or Tutor. He had read first a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1995 and then a Master of Arts in Fine Arts in 2015 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and had collected a series of awards between 2007 and 2018 from the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware related to porcelain tea ware. He founded Touch Gallery in 2018 at Tai Kwun where he had been running these classes since. He estimated that he had taught about 1,000 students in classes between 20 to 30 each. I later found on the website that he is the Founder, Director and Curator of Touch Ceramics and Touch Gallery and is billed as an Award-Winning Hong Kong Ceramic Artist, Ceramics Collector and renowned Kintsugi artist and instructor. Full details could be found on his website. Our class had just under 20 students and desks were arranged with four students on each and a set of tools between two students.
Enders began by asking each student in turn for their motivation for signing up. Su relayed her story of the broken decanter, while I said because I was asked to follow her, from which Enders tried to make a practical joke. After all had replied, he went straight into his subject of Kintsugi with minimum introduction or fanfare, beginning with the history and origin of the art and stressed that the work required a lot of patience, waiting and most important of all, mindfulness, adding that the object was not on the repair process, that being the beginning of creativity on which the artist should focus and from which he or she should face, accept and develop the ultimate goal in a continuing process. He also traced the syntax and semantics of the words “china” and “japan” in relation to ceramics and ki-urushi or raw lacquer. Without much ado, he launched into the actual repair processes and work, beginning with making our own spatula from a small piece of bamboo. We then mixed our own glue with the tools and raw materials provided and went on to repair the broken ware allotted to each of us. Everything went on like clockwork and slightly ahead on time, according to Enders.
Su had d bought a beginner’s book on Kintsugi in English from her favourite Eslite bookstore shortly after she had signed up for the classes and ordered from Touch Gallery a tool kit at $2,000 which was given her before class started, and she bought another book in English from Enders afterwards. The tool kit included a little book compiled by Enders. It also featured graphics, photos and biographical narrative from his students.
Today, Su had opened her tool kit and did some minor repair work to a few broken kitchen ware, including a lacquer dish – not cheap – she bought in Yonago. She was pleased with her achievement.
We will see what would happen next week, but it has already dawned on me that the broken decanter could not be repaired or restored easily.
