repairing with maki-e

Last month in the workshop I practiced repairing way using maki-e (蒔絵：lacquer painting ).
First I broke a small plate, then put it together again.

Normally I would finish it by drawing lacquer lines and spray gold powder on them. But this time I repaired it with maki-e.

Watching the joint lines for a while, I thought of painting a stick bug, though generally plants are painted such as bamboo or vines.
Maki-e nicely conseals the joint lines as if there were no seam !

kintsugi of glass

I fixed two broken glasses as exercise at the workshop . 

 I used chemical glue as well for the taller glass.

tokusa

Tokusa(木賊・砥草) or scouring rush is necessary for kintsugi work. To curve lacquer clay or to file off the overrun of lacquer, using sandpaper sometimes would damage the surface of ceramics. But if you use tokusa instead, you don't have to worry about that.

Ms Ma gave me tokusa in her front yard, that I boiled with a bit of salt and dried.

practice of 'molding method'

 When the lost part of ceramics is too big to repair it trusting one's hunch, I could use 'molding method.'

I got this broken cup at a dump yard of a ceramic factory to practice the 'molding method'.
As one of four edges was gone, I made a mold of a not-broken edge with paper clay. And then I applied the mold against the lost part and filled it with 'kokuso' or lacquer clay.

After kokuso has dried, I shaped it. I didn't finish it with gold powder, because this is just for practice.

Ms W's Chinese antique bowl

This is Ms W's antique. An edge was largely chipped. I put lacquer clay 'kokuso' on the chip and let it dry for two weeks. Then I shaped the kokuso with a carving knife and 'tokusa (Equisetum hyemale)'. It was rather difficult since I had to carve it trusting my hunch following the fringe shape of the bowl. 

lid of teapot of Ms Ma

Ms Ma's second request was a broken lid of her teapot. It's an easy task and the finish gold line of kintsugi fits the appearance of the teapot.

tiny Chinese teapot

I've got to know Kumiko san at Chaxinkyo, a Chinese tea room. She is a great Chinese tea lover

and an enthusiastic Chinese teapot collector. Once I repaired her teapots through kintsugi. Then she gave me this tiny Chinese tea pot in return whose spout had been tipped off.

It's a pity that I didn't take a picture of the original state when she gave it to me. 

The golden part in the picture had been lost which I made up with lacquer clay.

banko-yaki teapot

Banko ware or Banko-yaki (萬古焼) is ceramics made in Yokkaichi (四日市) of Mie prefecture. It is famous for producing good Japanese teapots.

My friend K san had carelessly dropped a lid of a ginka-kyusu (銀化急須) of Banko yaki.  'ginka' means that the color has changed to silver after firing.

The Banko-yaki kyusu (teapot) normally doesn't use any glaze. And when firing it at a very high temperature the surface of ceramics gets metallic touch.

soy sauce pot of Yamada Ryutaro

I bought this soy sauce pot at Wad Omotenashi Cafe in Osaka.
It is made by a potter Yamada Ryutaro (山田隆太郎） from Tajimi (多治見).
 I liked its lovely shape very much.

But at the same time I thought that the thin spout might be easily broken.

And it was true. After a while, just only hitting it lightly on the faucet when washing it, the spout went off.

So I fixed it. The golden ring it wears now looks nice.

lid of Chinese tea cup

This is another exercise I've got from Chaxinkyo. It's a lid of Chinese tea cup　蓋碗　(gai-wan). Broken into three pieces and there was a chip as well. I finished it with white gold powder.

container of Chinese tea

This is a container of Chinese tea leaf. It is one of my tea mates Ms W who asked me to repair it. She had dropped and split it evenly.

The two parts fitted precisely without chip or void.
But it was difficult to draw a finish line inside comparing to drawing a line outside. That's why the inside line is a bit thicker than I had intended. I need more practicing.

Chinese teapot of Chaxinkyo

Chaxinkyo (茶心居) is one of the few Chinese tea houses in Nagoya (名古屋) where I live. The owner Mr Tsubouchi is my mentor for Chinese tea world. One day he kindly handed me this broken teapot for my practice. He had bought this teapot in China and made it send to Japan. But when he opened the package,the teapot was already broken like this.

A part of bamboo had been lost and I had to make it up with kokuso (lacquer clay). For finishing I didn't use gold powder but I colored the lacquer with red, yellow and black color powder to make it resemble the teapot color.

 The result is this. I showed it to Mr Tsubouchi, but he didn't seem much impressed. So I might try again spraying gold powder or applying matte finishing.

coffee cup of Ando Masanobu

I bought these coffee cups of Ando Masanobu (安藤雅信) at his gallery 'Momogusa (百草)' in Tajimi (多治見) which is in a restored old Japanese house.

I only drink coffee when my husband makes coffee grinding coffee beans in the weekend. And as I don't drink it so much, I chose a smaller cup for me.

About a year ago, I was shocked to discover the bigger one had been chipped. I didn't know how this happened.

I repaired it and my husband began to use it soon without waiting the lacquer become hard enough in half a year. So when washing it, we treat it carefully, not touching the repaired part.

mug of Stony Brook University

I got this mug several years ago when I went to see my second daughter who was studying at the Stony Brook University taking a local train from Manhattan. While she was attending a class, I walked around in the campus in a cold wind and bought this mug at a University shop as a souvenir.

I carelessly broke its handle recently. Ｉ can't remember how much was it, but it was not at all expensive, and I bought it at a reduced price because it was older version.

But I couldn't dump it because it makes me remember a lot of things about my travel to New York.

So I fixed it with kintsugi. I left it without finishing it with gold powder because when I use it routinely handling it rather roughly,the finish gold line would be gone sooner or later.