Getting a handle on it (Kintsugi repair!) (Patreon)

My excitement at successfully registering for one of Repair PDX's very popular and very difficult-to-get-a-spot-in Kintsugi repair classes was short-lived when the directions instructed me to bring in a broken ceramic to work on and I realized that, for once, I don't actually have any at the moment.

Just a couple weeks earlier I had literally cut myself while washing an ancient mug that exploded in my hand but, like an idiot, I'd thrown it out (It was time. After a quindecennial of use, the design was practically invisible. RIP dinosaur bones mug that I got as a wedding favor from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles). Thankfully, I am not the only goblin in my social circles who hoards trash, so I put out a call and sure enough my longtime friend and studiomate, Jeff Parker, came through with a busted Michelle Obama mug. He bought it in the National Portrait Gallery's gift shop, after falling in love with Amy Sherald's painting in person. Unfortunately, it didn't survive the plane ride back to the west coast and he discovered it broken in his luggage when he got home. But when they (baggage handlers at the airport) go low, we (amateur fixers) go high and Parker took matters into his own hands with some epoxy. His repair job lasted a good year and a half- which is pretty respectable! But nature finds a way and after its second breaking it was forgotten on a shelf. Now Parker was entrusting my first time practice in the Kintsugi class to make his mug whole again. Would my unskilled first attempt leave our former first lady mug in worse shape than before? You be the judge!

First up, I had to scrape, pick, and sand off all the pre-existing epoxy from the original fixing. In class I learned that you won't get a good bond if you put fresh epoxy on top of old, so I got to pretend I was a paleontologist picking away at calcified detritus on an ancient dinosaur bone as I scraped it clean. I was surprised to learn that all the pointed edges also needed to be blunted down with sandpaper, creating a much more visible ravine between the reassembled pieces.

With all the available pieces epoxied together, I then filled the widened cracks and rebuilt a missing chunk with some clay-stuff. First I messily pushed and smoodged the clay over the surface, making a mess, and then washed the excess away with some alcohol on a Q-tip to that only the clay specifically in the cracks remained. Actually, I wrote 'clay' a bunch on the pictures and the rest of this post, but now I think the instructor called it "putty"? We had to squidge two different clay-like substances together to make it and then it started hardening pretty quickly once combined.

Then the paint! I don't remember what kind it was, I think maybe something made to stick on ceramics? It surprised me to learn that if you're going to gild the breaks with gold, first you need to paint an underlayer of red- or black, if you want to use silver. The first coat provides a backdrop for the metal material to pop against, and compensates for any pin pricks that don't get properly gilded, so instead of the original ceramic face showing through, the painted undercoat just accentuates the metal hue over it.

While the paint is wet, you then generously dump body-safe metallic mica powder over it, embedding the flakes in by gently dabbing a wide, soft brush. straight down into it. Don't do strokes, though! The typical brush stroking motion risks pulling the powder away and smoodging the paint. So you just gently dab dab dab.

And then...

You wait.

For

two

whole

days.

The paint takes 48 hours to cure with the powder in it, but after that you have...

Kintsugi, motherfuckers!

Awwwwww yiss! I think the gold squiggles are actually a really nice complement to the color scheme of the Obama portrait and her dress pattern.

Now, given that this food-safe gold mica powder contains metal, this stylish, visibly mended mug is no longer microwave-safe, so no reheating your tea after its gone cold. And, as demonstrated by Parker's prior epoxy repair and re-break, this is a hand-wash only mug now, no washing machines.

The next time you smash your favorite mug or some other ceramic treasure? Send it my way! I need more things to practice on!