Artist of the Week: Claudia Tennyson

I love art that makes you look at ordinary things in extraordinary ways.

I stumbled across a fascinating "repair" project when I was exploring the Japanese idea of wabi.   The original link is no longer valid, but I found a good write up of it here. 

The artist, Claudia Tennyson, states that she was "partly inspired by the Japanese tradition of repairing cracked ceramic vessels with gold filigree. The craftsperson makes the cracks visible instead of hiding them, and the mending process increases rather than depreciates the value of the vessel."

Could there be a more perfect metaphor for writing? We are gilding the cracks. Not covering them up, not even truly fixing them, because, often, that's beyond our power. But we can say: Look. Look right here.

How do you see Claudia's art? Is she crazy to repair things this way? What are the cracks you want to call attention to with your art?

*For a different take on wabi (or wabi-sabi, as it's more completely called) see this funny piece from Utne Reader. As they say, "are you wabi-sabi, or just wabi-SLOBBY?"