Kintsugi Artist Restores Ceramics Broken by Noto Earthquake, Adding Touch of Gold Along the Scars

By Haruka Fukai / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

12:52 JST, February 12, 2025

An artist in Tokyo is mending ceramics that were broken in the Noto Peninsula Earthquake for free. Using the traditional Japanese technique of kintsugi, he brings the shattered forms back to life.

“I want to put these broken ceramics back together, and in that way take in memories of the earthquake,” said Kunio Nakamura, 53.

In kintsugi, broken ceramics, such as vases and rice bowls, are glued back together with lacquer and then decorated with gold powder. Besides his work as a kintsugi artist, Nakamura also runs a book cafe in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.

Nakamura had wanted to expand his creative work to the Noto Peninsula, the center of such traditional crafts as Wajima-nuri lacquerware and Suzu ware, so he bought two traditional Japanese-style houses in Ishikawa Prefecture, one in the city of Wajima and another in Suzu. That was four months before the earthquake.

He had started using the houses as studio and living spaces when the quake struck on New Year’s Day last year, inflicting major damage on the house in Wajima and completely wrecking the home in Suzu.

When the earthquake hit, Nakamura was in Tokyo. On his return to Wajima, he found dozens of broken dishes at home. He began mending them with kintsugi, but then thought to himself: “If I just mend my own ceramics, that’s not doing my job. Isn’t my mission, especially at times like this, to restore everyone’s damaged ceramics?” About two weeks later, he posted on social media that he would fix people’s ceramics for free and he received about 200 items.

In mid-January last year, Takeshi Kanda, 51, a company employee who lives in Kanazawa, asked Nakamura to mend a Kutani ware porcelain vase that had shattered. The vase had been passed down for generations since the Meiji era (1868-1912) and was displayed in a Japanese-style room only during the New Year holiday period, as a prayer for a trouble-free year ahead for Kanda’s family.

The earthquake, measuring upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, struck on this special day, toppling the vase from a shelf. One wall of the house was damaged and Kanda’s two sons — one in elementary school and the other in high school — were afraid of aftershocks. “Restoring the vase should help my family feel at peace,” Kanda thought.

Nakamura struggled to fit together the many pieces of the vase, but eventually managed to assemble them like a puzzle and finished work on the display piece in August last year. Kanda named it “Kinfuji”(golden Mt. Fuji), as the seams decorated with gold powder resemble a mountain.

Kinfuji has become a symbol of restoration for Kanda’s family. “If you are having a hard time, overcome it, like kinfuji did,” he tells his two sons.

Nakamura is planning to go beyond fixing ceramics to also grow lacquer trees in the Noto region. He wants to use sales of his own kintsugi ceramics to pay to have the trees planted in Wajima. To start with, he is aiming to put about 100 trees in the ground. The lacquer from the trees would be used to repair broken ceramics.

“If it can be fixed, then you don’t need to feel down about it, even if it’s something precious that has broken,” Nakamura said. “I want to raise people’s spirits through the act of mending.”