Mending

Earlier this year I was taken to hospital with several (non Covid) life threatening conditions, thankfully my life was saved and after a week they discharged me. I was so glad to be home but was still somewhat fragile, however I grew stronger every day and so was on the road to recovery.

While I was away there was snow and freezing temperatures. Outside in my garden a pot was accidentally left full of water which turned to ice and split the pot in two. Such is the force of Nature.

I pondered this and decided to mend it using a form of the Japanese art of Kintsugi or “Golden Joinery”. This entails mending the pot with gold so that the cracks show. The philosophy behind this is that if an object has been damaged then it has more of a history and should, therefore, be celebrated and highlighted, rather than hidden or discarded. Here is an image of my mended pot.

I was really pleased with the result and shared this with a fellow artist in an email exchange. He praised my first time attempt and added that he hoped that I was on the mend. This brought home a connection that I had not made before. Not only was I on the mend but during this period of recuperation I had mended and perhaps even enhanced a pot I was particularly attached to and did not want to discard. I hold on to the hope the same can be said of myself.

Forces of Nature

I participated in an installation Ai no Keshiki (Indigo Views) which is soon to be part of an exhibition called “Forces of Nature ” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery from October 16, 2020 to June 27, 2021!!(https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/invitational-2020)At the special exhibition “FORCES OF NATURE: Renwick Invitational 2020 ” where Ai no Keshiki (Indigo Views) will be exhibited, four invited artists selected from all over the world will approach the long history of art’s engagement with the natural world through unconventional and highly personal perspectives. Roland Ricketts, one of the invited artists, supervises Indigo Art “Ai no Keshiki”