Gilded: The Art of Healing

I first read of Kintsugi in 2014, shortly before our son James took his life. It spoke to me immediately, being rooted in the acceptance of the impermanent and the embracing of imperfection. Not only was it aesthetically stunning, it felt so completely human.

Kintsugi, or “golden joinery” is the centuries-old Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using lacquer and gold. Each crack is considered an inevitable and beautiful part of its history with every mark of wear adding to the vessel’s story. Like human scars, this damage is permanent. We can’t erase it, but we can change our perception of it and be mindful of our healing.

After we lost James, something cracked in me. I don’t have a better word for it, it was a crack that ran straight through me and broke me apart. I had experienced loss at an early age, losing my father when I was six years old. I was alone with him when his heart stopped and he closed his eyes for the last time. In that moment of being unable to rouse him, I remember feeling vastly alone, as if the ground opened up and took my heart down with it. I didn’t feel that again until the day I found my son.

James suffered with mental illness which affected every aspect of his life and ultimately led to his death. On the day we said goodbye to my son, when we turned off all the machines and we let him go, I didn’t cry. I didn’t cry on the ride home or for the rest of the day. I didn’t cry until I dreamt about him that night, when he reached out to me in my dream and I couldn’t take him back...

Shortly after my son’s death, I came across that picture of the tiny, broken bowl with it’s cracks mended in gold – Kintsugi again. This time though, I wondered how I could mend the fractures in me. How would I heal and emerge stronger?

In the days that followed, I thought more and more about physical and emotional scars. A scar is evidence there is a healing process, and yet we rarely correlate this to our emotional convalescence. Tragedy and trauma can enter our lives at any moment. As a treasured teacup can so easily slip from our grasp and shatter, so too can our bodies and minds. In a sense, we are as delicate as a tiny piece of china, with a life not conducive to fragility.

There are no two scars alike, each one carrying an intimate and unique narrative and with no consent of our own, revealing a page from our personal diary. I felt this breach of privacy when James died. There was a sudden tear in my world that I found myself having to repeatedly explain. I remember wishing I had a broken arm so that people could see my pain and that soon, this self-explanatory cast would come off and I could put the trauma behind me. We tend our physical scars, bandage them, rehabilitate and work to lessen their impact, yet in most cases, the emotional damage is ignored, tucked away and reduced to something we “should be able to handle.”

Pain and trauma are inevitable and perfection is unattainable, so why do we try so hard to maintain the facade of wellbeing? Can we find greater healing in embracing inevitability? Could we accept that there will be hurdles to overcome, and that there should be and the effort we put forth to resolve these challenges can further strengthen our spirit, deepen our ability to empathise and add dimension to our existence? Can we change our perception of the wound? Can we find beauty in the fractures?

Five years later, I can tell you that things are softer (a word given to me by my wonderful friend, Lucia to describe how my feelings of immeasurable heartache would gently settle to a more manageable sadness). My days aren’t consumed with the vivid images of that day, his last words, the words not said or endless “if onlys…” It’s softer….There are beautiful memories of his sweet nature and childlike enthusiasm. His love of music and his artistic ability are happy thoughts for me. Some days, I find myself lingering on his artwork we have hanging in the hall and missing his silly, gasp-like laugh that his brother and sister could so easily tease out of him. Other days, I queue up his playlist, blaring Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.” That’s when the tears come…and I let them.

There’s no arguing there were bad times. Mental illness is gut-wrenching, and it leaves deep, cavernous fractures. But, I choose softer now. I choose his laugh and his sweet smile and his beautiful soul as my memories. I choose to let the wonderful times I shared with my son inspire me to help others.

I started The Gilded Project to restore and convey a sense of strength and self-worth that can easily be lost when faced with unexpected tragedy. I was broken and fractured and through this project and the open hearts of our survivors, I found my Kintsugi. We’ve captured the resolve of those who have physically and mentally suffered illness and harm as represented as scars on their bodies. Scars, which so often are seen as a shameful aspect of the self, are reframed to be beautiful works of art; as beautiful as the people who carry them. Our goal is to show that we, as individuals, are worth this gilded repair and to view each scar not as a flaw or a defect or a glitch in our quest for perfection, but as a beautiful extension of our journey.

This road is not easy. It’s raw and exposed and painfully honest. We all have a scar on our body. Some are big and others can barely be seen, but they are there and there’s one thing that’s the same for all: They are proof that we heal.

Gina Woelfel
Founder and Creative Director, Gilded: The Art of Healing

www.gildedtheartofhealing.com
instagram.com/gildedtheartofhealing
Gilded photographer: Michael Cevoli