There is a very, very old process of repairing broken ceramics developed in Japan called Kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi. In this process, precious metal dust is mixed with resin and the mix is used to repair the break. The result is that the scars of the break are made beautiful and add to the story of a treasured piece of pottery.
This series is a meditation upon the idea of mistakes or damage adding to the beauty of a piece. Cages of pristine bars of sterling silver are fused together using a perilous technique ~ the perfect silver wire succumbing to its natural state at either end as flame is used to encourage the ends to fuse together without solder. The nature of fusing silver is necessarily unpredictable and a second of distraction can cause beautiful warps in the wire. All apparent mistakes are made beautiful with a further application of 18k gold.
Atelier Patricia Tozer 