Yoko Kawada: Designer / Maker The third article in a three-part series talking with Japanese-born artists based in Sydney, Australia
Yoko Kawada in her studio (Photo: ©Alana Landsberry)
I first met Yoko Kawada at an artist talk in a gallery I was working in at the time. I later contacted her, as I was interested to take a kintsugi class with her. She was a patient and skilled teacher to me as I worked on filing and filling pieces of a cracked plate. She advised me to see the break as an opportunity to extend the design potential of the repair. Her own kintsugi work is fine and detailed, combining traditional and contemporary knowledge and materials to not merely repair, but also to respond to the break in the object and its meaning and use to the owner. On an evening in November of last year when I met with her online, we each had a glass of red wine in hand. We talked for an hour, and this is just a fraction of our conversation. Lisa Pang: What was your journey to becoming a designer and maker, and specifically a kintsugi practitioner? YK: I don’t necessarily see myself as an artist as I didn’t go to art school. I prefer the term maker. I do have a family background with a lot of creative people. My grandfather was an architect, and I grew up in a house with a photography shop in front. People would come for their portraits and the film would be developed in the