Ju Ci: The Art of Repairing Porcelain

(thesublimeblog.org)

118 points | by lawrenceyan 5 days ago ago

13 comments

  • nickcw 2 days ago ago

    Wow - beautiful.

    I've mended a lot of porcelain and earthenware but I use the modern art of epoxy resin. The tricky bit is letting it set just enough so you can cut the excess off cleanly without smearing but not too much so you can't cut it all the while keeping it under enough tension.

    I like the string tensioning in the video - think I'll try that on my next mend. I normally use a set of small clamps but it is difficult to get them very tight.

  • numlocked 2 days ago ago

    I watched the video at the expecting one thing and finding something completely different. Remarkable — [0] watch the video in its entirety. Not what I thought when I read “staples to repair porcelain”.

    [0] intentional human use of an em-dash

    • interroboink 2 days ago ago

      For others interested, perhaps a more straightforward example is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGHkigtPcIA

      The one in the article is the same essential technique (structurally speaking), but with a lot more decorative flourish.

    • flyrain 2 days ago ago

      "intentional human use of an em-dash" LOL

      • johnea a day ago ago

        I still don't like them, human or pretend intelligence generated.

        Please use the correct punctuation for subclauses, the comma!

        However, I will give the comment author credit for _correctly_ surrounding the dash with spaces.

        This is my biggest bitch about the punctuation, it's used without spaces, making it indistinguishable from hyphenation.

        Written english is a space delimited language! The exception of the hyphen is to explicitly create one word by connecting several.

  • x13pixels 2 days ago ago

    Somewhat related is Kintsugi

    > Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

    • silisili 2 days ago ago

      The article mentions it -

      >> But Ju ci is more than a technique; like its close cousin, Kintsugi (the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics using lacquer and gold), Ju ci embraces a profound philosophy: that of celebrating “beauty of the imperfect.”

      • IAmBroom 2 days ago ago

        And that philosophy is called "wabi-sabi" (which is a hella fun word to say):

        "Japanese aesthetic philosophy finding beauty in imperfection, transience, and incompleteness. Rooted in Zen Buddhism, it appreciates the natural cycle of growth and decay, valuing authenticity, rustic simplicity, and the patina of age over modern perfection. It encourages accepting flaws, such as cracks in pottery or weathered surfaces, as part of an object’s unique story.

    • dumb1224 2 days ago ago

      It used to be a lot of them roaming in the residential area, out of necessity since household items were precious. Related is also the profession of a tinker to mend woks and pots and the scissor sharpener https://donwagner.dk/tinkers/tinkers-Zhongwen.html

      Used to hear their shout in the street but largely disappeared in the 90s.

  • blacksmith_tb 2 days ago ago

    Beautiful work, but the cup can't hold water (or tea, or wine) now I assume? So a partial restoration. It does make me wonder if you could do a mechanical repair like that and then reglaze and refire it (but I suppose that'd melt most metalwork soft enough to hammer onto a delicate cup...)

  • fedeb95 2 days ago ago

    This practice also describes coding in legacy applications, but instead of a silver leaf you have // TODO: fix

  • johnea a day ago ago