The best, the most beautiful, and the most metaphorical lemonade
December 23, 2014 6:53 AM Subscribe
It is said that "There are no mistakes, only opportunities". My mind is blown by kintsugi, the art of repairing ceramics using precious metals so that the repaired piece is arguably more beautiful than the original. Are there more things like this?
I am now fascinated by the art of deliberately leveraging what would otherwise be called "mistakes" to make something different and possibly better than the original. Are there more examples of this in other fields? Have people written about it? I don't mean just the acceptance of faults and mistakes, but the active drive to use them in a productive or creative way. I'm interested in known practices along these lines, but also in isolated instances, and I'm extra interested in high res graphics that illustrate the concept, so that I can make myself some art for my house to remind me of the zen in accidentally smashing dishes.
I am now fascinated by the art of deliberately leveraging what would otherwise be called "mistakes" to make something different and possibly better than the original. Are there more examples of this in other fields? Have people written about it? I don't mean just the acceptance of faults and mistakes, but the active drive to use them in a productive or creative way. I'm interested in known practices along these lines, but also in isolated instances, and I'm extra interested in high res graphics that illustrate the concept, so that I can make myself some art for my house to remind me of the zen in accidentally smashing dishes.
In woodworking, cracks (aka "checks") in boards can be repaired or reinforced using a butterfly. As I understand it the technique originated in Japanese woodworking but has since become popular in other traditions. Rather than attempting to hide the crack with glue or fillers, it is treated as a natural feature of the material, and a contrasting wood is often used to add visual interest.
posted by jedicus at 7:23 AM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 7:23 AM on December 23, 2014 [5 favorites]
Dispatchwork involves repairing brick walls with Lego.
posted by neushoorn at 7:27 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by neushoorn at 7:27 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]
The Visible Mending Programme. This guy does decorative repairs of textiles that he documents on his blog, and irl he teaches mending classes.
Sashiko is a bit like a textile equivalent of kintsugi, but the style is also influenced by the historical context of the Edo period—it's decoration that would have been legal for the merchant class under the sumptuary laws at the time.
posted by clavicle at 7:52 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sashiko is a bit like a textile equivalent of kintsugi, but the style is also influenced by the historical context of the Edo period—it's decoration that would have been legal for the merchant class under the sumptuary laws at the time.
posted by clavicle at 7:52 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
I've been seeing a lot of DIY stuff that creatively fills natural imperfections in wood. Example 1. Example 2. Example 3.
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:06 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:06 AM on December 23, 2014 [4 favorites]
This is a pretty different take on the concept, but I was reminded of the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva. At the beginning, mourners rip a scarf or other garment to show the loss that they've endured, and at the end they stitch up the garment in contrasting thread to show that a mending has occurred but not an erasure of the loss.
posted by mermaidcafe at 8:53 AM on December 23, 2014 [18 favorites]
posted by mermaidcafe at 8:53 AM on December 23, 2014 [18 favorites]
Native Hawaiian feast bowls were valued and so repaired, with the repairs valued as well. Here's an example of one with many repairs. Here's another with circle and butterfly repairs (click on the thumbnail image to view it in larger sizes).
posted by gudrun at 10:43 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by gudrun at 10:43 AM on December 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
Are there more examples of this in other fields? Have people written about it? I don't mean just the acceptance of faults and mistakes, but the active drive to use them in a productive or creative way.
Good science basically does this. In science, anything new that you learn is not an "accident" or "mistake." It's a successful experiment if it yields new knowledge, even if it didn't go as planned or yield what you expected. Penicillin was originally a "failed" experiment that someone realized had important implications:
I can't find the story online at the moment, but the famous Blenko bent neck vase started as an accident. They overheated a hand-blown piece or something and it ended up bent. Someone thought it was very pretty and it inspired a tradition of bent neck pieces from the company. If you google "Blenko bent neck" it yields lots of pretty images.
Current/modern start-up culture has concepts like "pivoting" -- taking a company that isn't quit gelling and tweaking it a bit to turn it into something successful. My recollection is that Hershey repeatedly failed in some kind of candy or confectionary type business before he finally became successful. Many business founders don't get good until they royally screw up it at least once and learn from their errors.
The book "Seeing Like a State" talks about a concept of metis. (there should be a line over the e, I copied and pasted but the line disappeared) My recollection is that it gives examples of things you cannot know unless you messed it up first, such as "bring the oil to the temperature just before the smoke point." The book suggests you can't know what that looks like unless you set it to smoking at least once -- in other words, unless you messed it up at least once. I am quite fond of that book and highly recommend it.
posted by Michele in California at 10:49 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
Good science basically does this. In science, anything new that you learn is not an "accident" or "mistake." It's a successful experiment if it yields new knowledge, even if it didn't go as planned or yield what you expected. Penicillin was originally a "failed" experiment that someone realized had important implications:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin#HistoryAnd that basically started the era of antibiotics.
The traditional version of this story describes the discovery as a fortuitous accident: in his laboratory in the basement of St Mary's Hospital in London (now part of Imperial College), Fleming noticed a Petri dish containing Staphylococcus that had been mistakenly left open, was contaminated by blue-green mould from an open window, which formed a visible growth.[22] There was a halo of inhibited bacterial growth around the mould. Fleming concluded that the mould released a substance that repressed the growth and caused lysing of the bacteria.[20]
Scientists now suspect that Fleming’s story of the initial discovery of the antibacterial properties of the penicillium mould is inaccurate. With a modern understanding of how the bacteria and the mould interact, scientists know that if bacteria were already present on the petri dish they would have inhibited the growth of the mould and Fleming would not have noticed any mould on the plate at all. A more likely story is that a spore from a laboratory one floor below, run by C. J. La Touche, was transferred to Fleming's petri dish before the bacteria were added.
I can't find the story online at the moment, but the famous Blenko bent neck vase started as an accident. They overheated a hand-blown piece or something and it ended up bent. Someone thought it was very pretty and it inspired a tradition of bent neck pieces from the company. If you google "Blenko bent neck" it yields lots of pretty images.
Current/modern start-up culture has concepts like "pivoting" -- taking a company that isn't quit gelling and tweaking it a bit to turn it into something successful. My recollection is that Hershey repeatedly failed in some kind of candy or confectionary type business before he finally became successful. Many business founders don't get good until they royally screw up it at least once and learn from their errors.
The book "Seeing Like a State" talks about a concept of metis. (there should be a line over the e, I copied and pasted but the line disappeared) My recollection is that it gives examples of things you cannot know unless you messed it up first, such as "bring the oil to the temperature just before the smoke point." The book suggests you can't know what that looks like unless you set it to smoking at least once -- in other words, unless you messed it up at least once. I am quite fond of that book and highly recommend it.
posted by Michele in California at 10:49 AM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
Quilting.
In some quilts, the squares are made by sewing together random scraps of cloth, so in addition to the square array of sewing, each individual square has more stitching. and often the stitching is done with heavy colorful thread.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:26 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
In some quilts, the squares are made by sewing together random scraps of cloth, so in addition to the square array of sewing, each individual square has more stitching. and often the stitching is done with heavy colorful thread.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:26 PM on December 23, 2014 [2 favorites]
Jazz, or really just improvised performances (musical and otherwise) in general.
posted by No-sword at 1:47 AM on December 24, 2014
posted by No-sword at 1:47 AM on December 24, 2014
This thread is pretty dope, but am I the only one who was also secretly hoping for the best, most beautiful lemonade recipe?
posted by Handcoding at 8:27 AM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Handcoding at 8:27 AM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
we covered that in another thread, Handcoding.
posted by clavicle at 9:11 AM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by clavicle at 9:11 AM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Found Poetry
Hence no force, however great,
can stretch a cord, however fine,
into a horizontal line
which is accurately straight.
posted by bq at 11:41 AM on December 24, 2014
Hence no force, however great,
can stretch a cord, however fine,
into a horizontal line
which is accurately straight.
posted by bq at 11:41 AM on December 24, 2014
This seems relevant - the 15th century repair of a 14th century manuscript using brightly colored embroidery thread.
posted by taltalim at 5:41 PM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by taltalim at 5:41 PM on December 24, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yesterday I had a button break off my coat and decided to learn how to sew it back on myself. Remembering this post I decided to sew it back on with thread that stood out, but matched the jacket well. I'm not sure it's quite the same thing but now when I see it I'm proud of the mending I did myself so I think it kinda counts.
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:23 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:23 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Mizu at 7:10 AM on December 23, 2014 [3 favorites]