{"id":59128,"date":"2024-10-07T07:46:55","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=59128"},"modified":"2024-10-07T07:46:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:46:57","slug":"when-hope-is-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heuermontage.com\/?p=59128","title":{"rendered":"When Hope is Hard."},"content":{"rendered":"
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From: Kawaranai Sora: Nakinagara Warainagara (The Sky Unchanged: Tears and Smiles)<\/em><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fall has arrived at Portland Japanese Garden. Yellowing leaves and needles shine golden when touched by the sun, moss glows chartreuse in the cracks of the stones where it prefers to settle, accentuating the imperfections of the otherwise smooth surfaces. I cannot imagine a more appropriate setting for the exhibition currently on show at the garden’s Pavilion Gallery and Tanabe Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kintsugi: The Restorative Art of Naoko Fukumaru<\/a><\/em> is mirroring the sights from the fall garden – attention-grabbing gold and an openness to blemishes rather than perfection of any given object. In addition, the artist offers us much more, introducing general ideas about Japanese philosophy as well as universal approaches to healing, so direly needed in a world torn apart by division and war, in desperate want of mending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kin<\/em> means gold in Japanese, and Tsugi<\/em> refers to the joining of parts. Fukumaru<\/a> takes broken vessels or other damaged objects and restores their original shape as much as possible. Rather than hiding the restorative efforts, the contours of the breaks are accentuated with gold dust, now shimmering veins traversing the pottery. The mending consists of a multi-step, time-consuming procedure, applying multiple layers of the Japanese lacquer urushi<\/em>, a highly allergenic resin derived from the urushi tree, mixing it with powdered gold or silver, and eventual polishing the joined surfaces at the seam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some say that Kintsugi can be traced back to Ashikaga Yoshimasa<\/em>, a shogun of the 15th century. He sent a favorite broken Chinese tea bowl back to China for repair and did not like the outcome at all. Japanese artisans were instructed to develop a more aesthetically pleasing way to restore broken ceramics. The result was Kintsugi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The essence of the approach is to convey the history of a given object and the beauty found in its imperfection. Mending reconstitutes what has been broken, with visible scars a reminder of the care we extend to what has suffered, and our belief that underneath it is still whole, now even more beautiful. The technique is clearly in line with a more general Japanese philosophy, that of Wabi Sabi<\/em>. In the most basic form (admittedly my level of understanding), it acknowledges three simple realities: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wabi <\/em>refers to the essence of simplification, of cutting down the things to that which is important, whereas Sabi<\/em> refers to the passage of time, and more specifically to the fact that the core of something remains the same, even though the facade or surface may change over time (Ref<\/a>.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blue Moon (2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samanid Empire, Nishapur pottery, ca. 10th -12th C. – Repaired with resin, calcium carbonate, 24K gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fukumaru grew up in a third-generation antiques dealer family in Kyoto, Japan. She trained as a restoration expert for glass and ceramics in England and is in high international demand by elite institutions and museums to bring blemished pieces back to perfection. Her turn to Kintsugi happened by chance some 5 years ago, during an exceedingly difficult period in her personal life. She is now counted among the masters of the art form<\/a>. Creating art that focussed on a narrative of resilience<\/em> had a therapeutic effect. This is obviously true for all good therapies: we establish meaning through a close look at our history, we focus on what has been overcome, rather than what was harmed, and in the process nourish hope and emphasize strength simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very idea that scars can be beautiful and proud emblems of survival is empowering during times when hope is hard. However changed, the essence of us moves on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ceramics on display come from various parts of the world, different cultures and different time periods, all broken in one way or another, discarded from quotidian use, and now restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dreaming in The Blue (2023) (detail)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kashan Persian earthenware, ca. 11th – mid 1 4th C – Repaired with resin, calcium carbonate, urushi, and 24K gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each vessel has its own story to tell, often helped by explanatory titles. The artist put some back together with added beauty,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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combined others with found objects, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Born This Way – Driftwood (2023) Imari porcelain, ca. 1820-1860<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Born This Way – Unwanted (2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imari porcelain, ca. 1820-1860 Repaired with resin, urushi, and 24K gold<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Naturally degraded over time, unusually shaped driftwood interacts with human-made ceramics deformed from the extreme heat of the kiln. Both have undergone a journey of transformation, exhibiting an unintentional beauty forged beyond human control. Fukumaru’s Born This Way series looks into the harmony between human and nature’s creations, conveying arguments for what true beauty is in our modern world.” (Display Signage)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and experimented with more ceramic embellishments for a third grouping, adding elements of sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Beautiful Trauma – Persian Jug (2023) Persian terracotta jug, ca. 1200 – 800 BCE – Repaired with resin, urushi, 24K gold, and plaster “Crystals require high heat, pressure, and time to form. Fukumaru’s motivation behind this piece was transforming negative experiences into something empowering. Conserving the ancient and porous ceramic fragments of the Persian jug was delicate and time-consuming work to which she added dozens of individually cast crystal forms that were carefully refined, assembled, and attached. Created over many months, the process took on meaning: for each scar that heals, a crystal forms as evidence of surmounting hardship.” (Display Signage.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her art challenges the viewer to find meaning – as all good art does. The artist herself stresses the therapeutic value of retroactively working through trauma, and coming up healed on the other end. I could not agree more: her work exemplifies resilience. The aesthetics of scar visibility also reminded me of a related approach that we have started to see amongst survivors of surgical trauma, in particular breast cancer. Many women these days opt not for reconstructive surgery, but put striking tattoos over their mastectomy scars, a sign of acceptance of a new kind of beauty born from fear and pain that is overcome. My own relationship with scars, perhaps explaining my intense affinity to Fukumaru’s work, started early. Two symmetrical, L-shaped scars from lung surgery on my 16 years-old back were eventually accepted rather than self-consciously loathed through the beauty of healing words: a friend dryly commented, “I see, that’s where they cut off your wings.” Not that an angelic existence beckoned, but I never had problems with scars again. Embellished acknowledgment healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The possibility of reemergence from existential destruction is, of course, particularly poignant for a nation who lived through the horrors of Hiroshima and the 3.11 catastrophe, when on March 11, 2011, an earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of residents of the Tohoku region in the northeastern part of the country, which in turn caused a partial meltdown of one of the reactors of the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture. Various forms of art revealed the perseverance of the Japanese people working through trauma. Tanka poetry <\/a>proliferated, describing ordinary people’s reactions and approaches to healing. Filmmakers captured the determination to overcome disaster. Here is my favorite short by Isamu Hirabayashi, a brilliant monologue <\/a>of a cicada that survived the 66 years between the two disasters. It acknowledges that nothing lasts forever in face of catastrophe, but that forward movement is required to the very last moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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