About
Hello, I’m Nicole.
I repair broken ceramics by hand from a small studio in East London, using kintsugi — the Japanese method of joining a break with lacquer and finishing the seam in metal.
How I started
I trained in ceramics and spent several years making my own work. The first piece I ever repaired was mine: a teapot I’d spent a fortnight on, knocked off a shelf a week after it came out of the kiln. Gluing it back together felt like pretending it hadn’t happened. Filling the joins and drawing them in metal felt honest.
People started sending me their own pieces not long after, and at some point the repairs took over from the making. That was about fifteen years ago. I haven’t thrown a pot in a while.
How I work
Every piece is handled by me, from the moment it arrives to the moment it’s packed for its return. Fragments are cleaned and dry-fitted first, so I know exactly how a piece goes back together before any lacquer is mixed.
Joins are built up in thin layers of urushi, and each layer is left to cure for several days in a damp cabinet. Lacquer hardens with humidity rather than heat, which is the real reason nothing here can be hurried. The seam is finished last, with metal powder brushed into the final layer.
Where fragments are missing, the gap is filled and shaped before it is finished, so the form is whole again even where the original material isn’t.
Most repairs take four to eight weeks. Badly shattered pieces take longer, and I’d rather tell you eight weeks and mean it.
- 500+ Pieces mended
- 15 years At the bench
- 4–8 weeks Typical turnaround
- 12 months Warranty on every repair
The studio
Where the work happens
Photographs of the studio are being taken and will be added here.
On wabi-sabi, briefly
People ask about wabi-sabi, and I’m careful with it, because it’s easy to turn a way of looking at things into a sales pitch. The short version is this: a mended piece isn’t a lesser version of the one that broke. It’s a different object with a longer history, and the repair is part of what it is now.
What I notice more often than philosophy is relief. Someone has kept a box of fragments in a cupboard for two years because throwing it away felt wrong. Getting the piece back, whole and usable, is the point. The rest is just how it’s done.
Have something you’d like me to look at?
Send a few photographs and I’ll tell you honestly what can be done.