Ripping and Repair

Japanese kintsugi involves taking something that has been broken, specifically pottery, and practicing repair in ways that highlight or accentuate the site of brokenness, by highlighting and accentuating the seams where the pottery was damaged. My art practice and writing pushes kintsugi processes further, taking older artworks I have created, hymns, and scriptures to create new works by ripping them apart and putting them together in collage. In writing, I excavate untold histories and retell well-worn ones to rip them apart, to discover what’s there that remains to be conveyed to us.

Ripping and Repair is a workshop in which participants will engage in deep meditative, self-reflexive and reflective processes by making things from things they will, with me, rip up, and repair. Participants are encouraged to bring scriptures or other sacred texts they find meaningful, pictures or images of comfort and care, and other ephemera with them to Kirkridge. Collectively, we will rip them up. Collectively, we will repair to create something otherwise. This is a spiritual practice and process.