Glen Martin Taylor is putting a vulnerable spin on the traditional Japanese art of Kintsugi. Rather than highlight pottery’s cracks with gold dusting, he fills them with unpolished, nostalgic, personal objects.
No one gets through life without accumulating scars along the way. We grow, we break a little, and we heal. Sometimes, we even come out the other side stronger and more beautiful. Kintsugi artist Glen Martin Taylor mirrors this restoration process in his art.
Kintsugi is the centuries-old Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer. Instead of hiding the pottery’s scars, the Kintsugi artist often accentuates them by dusting the broken areas with powdered gold. It’s an art form that celebrates our imperfections.
Taylor’s Kintsugi is unique, though. He describes his version of Kintsugi as more “ugly human.” In place of lacquer and gold, Taylor joins the fractured ceramics with objects like chains, nails, scissors, and barbed wire. They are remnants from his past, symbolic of his complicated emotions. Besides, the human experience is not dusted with gold. It is chaotic, confusing, and random. “Not all that beautiful perfect bullshit,” says Taylor.
The traditional pottery that Taylor made before picking up Kintsugi did not satisfy him. An emotional breaking point inspired Taylor to stop trying to perfect pottery and start destroying it. “Deep wounds require that you no longer give a fuck,” says Taylor. Instead, you must “dance on the edge and beyond.” By manifesting his “inner brokenness” into his art, Taylor began to heal.
“Deep wounds require that you no longer give a fuck. ”
He describes breaking the ceramics as what it must feel like to be a surgeon, “making the first incision into a long healing operation.” The piece’s wound continues to bleed until Taylor is completely present. In the end, it is only Taylor, the “surgeon”, sitting with the shattered piece.
The mending is where the magic happens. This process, not the final product, incites the emotional recovery. It’s not a one-and-done, either. What Taylor calls “silencing your demons” is addicting. His serenity lasts only for the day. In the morning, the cycle repeats itself.
Still, Taylor’s work is autobiographical, and it always has been. His challenges reveal themselves in his art. That’s what makes his art so dark and beautifully imperfect.
Taylor’s poetic words, which he often adds to his pieces, accentuate the message. In a recent Instagram post, Taylor featured a hammer inscribed with “god was a hammer” attached to a plate. In the caption, he elaborates with a touching poem. “God was a hammer / and I was just a little boy / who played down the hall,” he writes.
Scrolling through his Instagram page, it’s clear that Taylor is not the only one benefitting from his work. His comment sections are full of fans thanking him for his vulnerability and glimpses of hope. His art exudes the feeling of being understood. He believes that if you create something positive from your pain, it is no longer senseless.
Whenever someone expresses gratitude for his art, he views it as a “circle of healing” being completed. “Connection is the best drug,” says Taylor.
“The older I get, the more crap I have to visually scream about.”
Life’s tests never stop, so neither does his inspiration. “The older I get, the more crap I have to visually scream about,” says Taylor. Everyone suffers; it’s just a matter of how people manage that suffering. Taylor’s art is his way of dealing with heartache and what he calls the “dilemma of being human on this silly planet.”
Taylor shows us that art is about more than its beauty and polish. Through the process of creation, the artist mends themselves and inspires others to do the same.
