Serendipity and Kintsugi

Earlier this year I started to carve the phrase “Where attention goes energy flows” – something I had heard on a ‘Yoga with Adrienne’ video.  The piece was coming along beautifully when catastrophe struck!  I moved the easel and despite the piece being clamped to the easel it still managed to fall to the floor, breaking into three pieces.  Once the expletives were done, I had to chuckle  – obviously I wasn’t paying attention properly and the energy flew south!!

Having recalibrated I decided that I would experiment with Kintsugi (or my version of it), an ancient practise of fixing broken things with gold joinery and embracing the imperfections.  

As Leonard Cohen said “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”….incidentally something I carved for the Stone Carving Festival in 2019.  

In my case I wanted to be sure the stone glued together properly and would hold so I used some very strong glue and then gold leafed the resulting areas.  Some of the slate had splintered and couldn’t be saved which meant some larger areas of gold but it came together afterall.  

Hand carved slate ‘Where Attention Goes Energy Flows’ phrasing with a touch of Kintsugi (Bloxham style). Nova Scotia Slate. 24″ L x 5″ H x 1/4″ D