Use traditional Japanese art to heal emotional wounds

This article is published in Tokyo Weekend Volume. 2, 2025.
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On a quiet little street in Tokyo’s Ogikubo neighborhood, sunlight flows up the windows of a small antique studio filled with ceramic shards, brushes, plastered paint, gold and bowls, at various repair stages. The air has a pale smell, and the yellow and silver trains of the Chuo-sobu line rumble occasionally.

This is the workplace and studio of Kintsugi artist and teacher Yuki Otani. If you have some interest in Japanese culture, you may be familiar with the concept of Kintsugi: the practice of repairing broken pottery with lacquer and gold, highlighting cracks instead of hiding them. Despite hundreds of years of practice, it resonates with many people both inside and outside Japan. It’s easy to understand why; Kintsugi provides effective visual metaphors, recognition and recognition of cracks, which are healing with its unique beauty.

Otani is called “Kintsugi Lady” online, using ceramic repairs as a channel for emotional renewal. She notes that her students usually have to not only repair broken pottery, but also heal their parts.

Golden scar

During a period of recovery and reflection, the word “Kintsugi” became Otani’s life. During her resting state after a major surgery, she encountered a simple phrase that resonated with: “All my scars are golden.” The phrase comes from the song “Kintsugi” by British singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin. These words made her feel not fully confronted – the quiet pain in her body changed, and the feeling that the future she had imagined began to slip away. Her body scars gradually recovered, but she didn’t know how to lean towards heart wounds. These words were like a quiet remedy-she didn’t know what she needed.

This consciousness made her try Kintsugi herself. While learning to repair ceramics with gold, she began to see how care and beauty stand out from change. For Otani, it became her own remedy – a reminder to not work hard to eliminate her own pain, but to live with grace. “For me,” she said, “Kinstuki is a way to make time a part of beauty.”

As her understanding of Kintsugi deepened, Otani (split her own time apart, between Japan and the UK, he began to notice its quiet echoes in his cross-cultural life. “My life itself is like Kintsugi,” she said. “It’s not one thing or another, but a space between meeting at different values ​​and creating new things.”

Otani’s works often blend materials from Japan and the UK. One noteworthy piece is a Japanese tea cup fused with fragments of British ceramics she found at a flea market in London. It fits perfectly, as if it was fate. This form of Kintsugi is called Yobitsugi, i.e. “Call and Join”, where the missing works are not replaced by the original works, but are replaced by something completely different.

“It’s about finding harmony through what you carry,” she said. “It’s also about respecting something lightly while listening carefully to what it might become.”

Fixing is not just an object

Ms. Kintsugi’s workshops, held in Tokyo, London and elsewhere, far outweigh the technology. Participants came from all over the world, bringing not only broken bowls and cups, but sometimes fragments.

A woman who attended her first workshop in Japan kept silent throughout the meeting and focused silently. A few days later, she returned and began to share her story, telling Ottani that her country was in the midst of war. Something about the Kintsugi process talks to her – not in words, but in a quiet, attentive rhythm of repair. “My country is in the middle of a conflict right now, but one day, when things are stable, I want you to come there to teach Kinsky,” she told Otani. That separate promise – “Let’s meet again” – felt like Kintsugi itself.

“It feels like we’re both trying to lean towards our hibi (a Japanese language that means ‘everyday’ and ‘cracks’ – be careful and bring them into a better future,” Otani said.

At another session, a British woman struggled to repair a vase belonging to a store she once operated with her late husband. A honeymoon couple tinker with a cup full of memories. A mother and daughter in Taiwan smiled at their cat’s broken plate and now turned into a “collaborative work of art.” Even an office worker in a suit drained her emotions from her work, leaving behind a seminar saying, “Kintsugi wasted my stress.”

Otani said these moments prove that Kinsky is more than just an object—it is a way of being. “This is a lens of how we view the beauty of the world and how we choose our lives.”

Respect for imperfection

In a world driven by availability and constant consumption, Kimsuki not only asks us to consider what we throw away, but also asks us to reflect on why we do so. “People often think that it makes sense to replace broken things,” Ottani said. “But Kingstugi invites us to stop, touch the flaws, and hear the stories it brings.” She added that the works that experienced Kintsugi are often not antiques or works of art, but everyday items like bowls, plates and cups – items with quiet historical and personal significance.

In this way, Kintsugi became not only a sustainable practice, but also a form of an emotional ecology, a way of reimagining how we define care, value, and connection.

Otani also began to incorporate materials that reflect this way of thinking in her artistic practice. Through the Kintsugi volunteer initiative in the earthquake-affected Noto Peninsula, she met those who harvested and perfected the Urushi, a natural paint necessary for the craft. “The many people I met there, who harvested and perfected Urash, are not only the foundation of this tradition, but also the foundation of survivors. Despite the hardships, they are still working to protect what is passed down.”

Now, she used some paint at the workshop, allowing participants to connect not only through the story, but through the material itself – allowing their hands to meet a place and its people through the tinkering behavior. This experience also led her to start planting her own sumac trees, fostering a future where people, crafts and nature grow together.

The future is integrated

Otani is currently working with overseas museums and educational institutions to conduct workshops, and she hopes to publish a book that captures her thoughts and experiences through Kintsugi’s lens. Her approach is not about guidance, but about creating open spaces where people can explore and respond to practice in their own way through textures of their personal stories and cultural contexts.

“Kintsugi is to be repaired – but it never resolved,” she said. “This takes many forms. It’s just a quiet way to take care of what you love. For some, it’s art. For others, it’s a path to healing. It’s important that everyone finds their own way.”

More information

At the Rokujigen Gallery in Ogikubo, Otani offers a simplified, one-day version of her Kintsugi session. To book, DM her on Instagram.

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