There is a profound silence that follows the shattering of an object—a momentary void where form dissolves into fragments. In 2019, Naoko Fukumaru found herself inhabiting that void. A renowned conservator who had spent two decades preserving the integrity of global masterpieces, Fukumaru faced a personal disintegration that no adhesive could invisibly repair.
Following the collapse of a twenty-one-year relationship, the Japanese Canadian artist sought refuge in a women’s shelter, grappling with the weight of trauma and displacement. “I was completely smashed,” Fukumaru reflects. It was in this state of acute vulnerability that the philosophy of Kintsugi—the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and gold—shifted from a distant cultural reference to a visceral lifeline.
Vancouver-based conservation artist Naoko Fukumaru has found spiritual healing through the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
The Invisible vs. The Illuminated
Fukumaru’s journey into Kintsugi is marked by a compelling irony. Before turning to the golden seams of Japanese tradition, she was a master of Western conservation. Her hands had worked on the surfaces of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Rodin’s The Thinker, and artifacts from the Tomb of Tutankhamun.
The ethos of Western conservation is one of invisibility; the goal is to erase the trauma of the object, hiding the damage so effectively that the viewer sees only the illusion of an unbroken past. It is a denial of history in favor of aesthetic perfection.
When a local potter contacted her to inquire about a Kintsugi workshop, Fukumaru was initially perplexed. Despite her expertise with museum-grade restoration, she had never practiced the traditional Japanese method. Yet, the timing was providential. Realizing that her Western training of “hiding mistakes” mirrored her own internal struggle, she turned toward the East. She ordered texts from Japan, immersing herself in the materials and philosophy of Kintsugi.
The transition was not merely technical, but spiritual. Unlike the Western approach, Kintsugi does not pretend the break never happened. Instead, it traces the fault lines with urushi lacquer and dusts them with gold powder. The damage is not just acknowledged; it is elevated. The scar becomes the focal point, a testament to survival and history.
Fukumaru’s affinity for the broken was perhaps preordained by her upbringing in Kyoto. Born into a third-generation antique auction house family, she lived among objects that carried the weight of time. Her father would often rescue damaged, abandoned ceramics from the auction house, bringing them home for daily use.
“Every day my mother served food on those cracked or chipped ceramic plates,” she recalls. In a world obsessed with the pristine, her childhood table was a landscape of fractures and resilience. This early exposure to the dignity of damaged things laid the groundwork for her later career.
She formalized this passion at West Dean College in Chichester, England, earning a master’s degree in ceramic and glass conservation. This academic rigor, combined with her intuitive understanding of materials, allowed her to bridge the gap between Western technical precision and Eastern philosophical depth. When she finally began teaching Kintsugi—drawing on twenty years of dexterity—she was not just repairing pots; she was facilitating a dialogue on fragility.
The Alchemy of Recovery
The practice of Kintsugi requires patience. The lacquer takes time to cure; the process cannot be rushed. For Fukumaru, this slow reconstruction mirrored her own recovery. By the time she held her workshop a year after that initial inquiry, her life had stabilized. The act of mending the external object had become a ritual for mending the internal self.
“We come to celebrate our challenges, difficulties, and history as an important aspect of our life and identity,” Fukumaru observes. “Our healing can be a beautiful part of who we are.”
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In Fukumaru’s hands, the gold lines are not merely decorative. They serve as a map of the object’s journey, proving that it has encountered the world, shattered, and returned whole—albeit changed. The resulting piece is often more visually arresting than the original, possessing a complexity that perfection cannot mimic.
Through Kintsugi, the ceramic is no longer defined by its utility or its pristine condition, but by its resilience. It stands as a physical manifestation of a profound truth: that we are not diminished by our fractures, but rather, through the alchemy of acceptance, we are gilded by them.
Vancouver-based conservation artist Naoko Fukumaru has found spiritual healing through the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
Kintsugi pottery ©Photos by Naoko Fukumaru
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