My favorite mug is one that I purchased probably 20 years ago. It has painted elephants all around the outside with decorative details on the handle. I’ve always loved elephants and objects that look like they come from the other side of the world. It’s no surprise that eventually this mug wore out, like all things do. It cracked down the entire side, leaking any liquid it held. Not ideal for a mug.

I tried to use it for other things–holding pens, a toothbrush holder. But it wasn’t ever the same. I wanted my favorite mug back. It fit perfectly in my hand, it held just the right amount of tea, and the design brought me joy every morning I used it. But how do you fix something that is so deeply broken?

I think about this a lot–mending broken things.

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The Modern Community is Broken

I have been taught how to throw things away. I’ve been told that new is always better and that there is enough to go around so don’t worry about it. But I’m starting to see the problems with this way of thinking. I’m starting to see how this consumeristic viewpoint has separated us, depleted us, and affects the natural world.

I have had a love for community since high school. I love to gather with people, to share meals, to lean on each other and build each other up. I’m a sucker for a coming of age story or any mention of building and strengthening relationships. It’s something I’ve known deep down is paramount to our survival.

And yet, I’m more disconnected than ever.

Maybe it’s a new mom thing. But I don’t think that’s it. I felt this long before my son came along.

The need to have our own everything means that we don’t share goods with our neighbors (cup of sugar anyone?)

The push for convenience means eating out instead of making a meal together, or ordering supplies instead of going to the store and running into an old friend.

The ability to chat with anyone around the world at any time with our devices means that we can ignore the people right in front of us.

I miss the days of church picnics (even if my religious beliefs differ these days). I miss people showing up at my house and just walking in, because we all felt like family. I miss potlucks, movie nights, and running errands together. I miss community.

It’s clear that like my favorite mug, community too is deeply broken.

The Art of Kintsugi

I discovered Kintsugi over a decade ago and of course, immediately fell in love. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending with gold. Originating in pottery, broken works were mended together and then painted with gold to highlight the cracks. This emphasized the places that something was broken and how its brokenness actually made it more beautiful. (Because, as I say in my painting workshop, there is no such thing as perfection).

This whole philosophy combines all the things I love–mending, anti-perfection, beauty through transformation, and saving natural resources. It also allowed me to use my favorite mug again and I love it even more with its gold line running from top to bottom, inside and out.

The Japanese understand the importance of protecting resources, living on an island this was vital to their survival for so long. But they have also developed so many traditions that turn everyday occurrences into art (or magic, if you will). Tea ceremonies, Wabi Sabi, Forest Bathing and more are all practices they’ve created to be present, appreciate what is in front of you, and to care for nature. Lessons I know I need constant reminders of.

The Metaphor of Mending

I picture community as a crowded table (thank you to The Highwomen)–Breaking bread, drinking wine, fully present to the ones in front of you. No gadgets, no technology, just the backdrop of a beautiful landscape and an evening of getting lost in story.

Some of my favorite memories as a kid revolve around the dinner table. Almost all of my favorite memories in life don’t involve technology and do involve friends or family. The same could be true for my favorite storylines (often happening in fantasy worlds where phones aren’t present or in the 80’s)

This painting is what community used to be.

It’s the crowded table of my dreams. It’s a world where we truly connect but aren’t just connected by the internet. It’s the fantasy of what community used to look like before we learned to always buy new, to consume more, and to be glued to our phones (and admittedly, I’m guilty of all of these things too).

I realized that community in our world, or the lack thereof, needs to be mended.

Technology isn’t going anywhere so how do we go back to strong communities like generations past but with the use of these modern tools too? How do I approach community with new eyes and in a way that makes it even more beautiful than before?

Mending the Communal Vessel

As much as I’d love to relive the 90’s when it comes to community, that isn’t going to happen. So what if instead of trying to rebuild what community used to look like we instead mend it with gold? We show off what has been broken and now fixed as a reminder of where things didn’t work.

In many ways, technology has been my communal offering since having a baby. Marco Polo might just be my favorite app. I’ve connected with amazing small businesses through social media and also found my Moms Who Walk Group which allowed me new friends and connections. The thing with technology, as we see in online dating, is it should be used for the intro and then the meetings need to happen in person. I need gatherings, shared meals, creative communities, and real honest conversations–about running a small business, being a mother, navigating the changing landscape of politics in this country, and what birds you’ve seen migrate into your backyard recently.

It doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to be real. It needs to be regular.

Art as Ceremony, Painting as Prayer

Standing in front of a camera and ripping a painting to pieces was both jarring and freeing in the same moments. It isn’t a print, it’s the original painting. It’s hours and hours of choosing colors, composition, fixing faces and lighting, adjusting clouds and getting the texture of the grass just right. And then pulling it apart in two.

It felt like the vail ripping in the bible when Jesus died. Or the vail ripping inside of me in the process of childbirth. Pulling something apart in two. Ripping to pieces. Creating a clear point of new beginning.

That is what this piece is about. A clear point of new beginning.

In bringing the pieces back together, not quite fitting like they did the first time, there was a beauty to it. A healing. And the gold lines that bring out the cracks and the texture of the paper actually got me excited.

I know that I need community in my life. I know that I am working diligently to get back that strong feeling of groundedness, of support and love. It won’t look like the community of my youth, and that’s okay. I’m ready to highlight the imperfections of community and be a part of it anyway.

As my old church used to say “We’re pro-participation, anti-perfection.”

I don’t know what the world needs next, but I think it begins with mending.
With gold. With glue. With gentleness.