A Personal Reflection Upon Life’s Human Fragmentation
Life presents interesting timing as particular events bring mindful revelations into a person’s life. Such a timing occurred in January of this year of 2021 within my Life’s timeline. I was searching for a YouTube video pertaining to pickleball play and a video appeared within the main video selection bar involving the Japanese art form named Kintsugi
I viewed this video to learn of the Kintsugi history and art form. Information I have reviewed states the art form started within the 15th Century in Japan. One of Japan’s Shoguns had a piece of well liked pottery broken. He sent the broken pieces to China to be repaired. When the treasured piece was returned he found the repair involved the use of metal staples. He was extremely displeased with the repairing process and challenged Japanese artists to create a more beautiful and useful process for repairing the broken pottery. Thus the process named “Kintsugi” was born!
There is an associated philosophy to the Kintsugi process of using gold and an adhesive to repair a broken piece of pottery in order for the piece to have future value/use. It is named “Wabi Sabi”, which is a Zen Buddhism philosophy involving embracing Life’s imperfections.
My interest in the aforementioned Kintsugi and Wabi Sabi areas stems from growing up with a Mother who was a Registered Nurse, who spent her career within the Mental Health area. She started her career at a state hospital in Lincoln, NE; working at nights on the various floors assisting with the people residing there for various mental health issues. This state hospital also had a Maximum Security building to house the criminally insane. During our nightly family dinners my Mother would talk about subjects relating to mental health while my Father would talk about sports.
My art form moves beyond the use of pottery as a representative art form of Kintsugi through my use of pictures of high profile individuals, or subjects, to show the possible broken Soul of the noted person or collective subject and how Life’s Force can work to repair/mend it. For my first triptych art form, I have used a picture of Tiger Woods to show the flow of Life’s Force using gold paint as the Kintsugi repair process does.
My art form entitled “A Personal Reflection Upon Life’s Human Fragmentation” broadens the interpretation of Kintsugi, and its singular use of a piece of pottery, through the use of 3 pictures to show various degrees of involvement associated with a subject's possible broken Soul by showing how the subject’s damaged Soul may have or has affected others. I feel there is value to oneself to strive to repair areas of the Soul in order to move forward in a more positive direction with one's Life. My art shows the flow of possible positive Life Force into the person's Soul and the Soul's of people possibly affected by the choices/events of the noted subject.
Within my original art form I use straight lines of gold paint, within the 2nd and 3rd pictures, to symbolize the involvement of others when the noted subject’s Soul is damaged through outside events that are not controllable by the noted subject or due to active decisions made by the noted subject. The 3rd picture of my Trilogy/Triptych of A Personal Reflection Upon Life’s Human Fragmentation incorporates the placement of a black circle within the body of the noted subject to symbolize the existence of a Black Hole, a void, within the noted subject that may never be repaired by Life’s Source of Energy.
When I completed my first triptych subject - Tiger Woods, I included a photo (i.e. Tiger Woods) of the triptych named A Personal Reflection Upon Life’s Human Fragmentation TW for the submission of material for a filing tied to a “Visual Copyright” to the US Copyright Office. My Visual Copyright was approved by the US Copyright Office on November 02, 2021.
I plan to create other A Personal Reflection Upon Life’s Human Fragmentation pictures of my triptych approach, of other noted Individuals and other future chosen subjects.
“I have Loved, I have been Loved and I have lost Love,
I have had Great Friends and False Friends,
I have Witnessed Wonderful Sunrises and Sunsets,
And, I have Walked through Terrible Storms.”
by RG Nelson