Alabaster set

Have you heard of a Japanese art form called 'kintsugi'? If not, it's used in pottery. When a piece of pottery is broken and repaired, rather than try and make the repairs as invisible as possible, they are actually highlighted with gold. I really like the philosophy behind it, giving a piece of pottery a new lease of life, but in a way that shows the piece has had a life already. Sort of being proud of your scars and not ashamed to show them, as they are part of who you are and the life you have had.

Why do I mention kintsugi in a blog post on an alabaster chess set? Well, it all started with a very nice alabaster set, made by C A&A in Italy, listed on eBay, including the marble board. The buy-it-now price was very low, so I jumped on it; pieces and board duly arrived, in two separate boxes

Unfortunately, the seller naively thought that simply putting some 'fragile' tape around a cardboard box would prevent it being kicked about in the postal system. The pieces were fine, as they had some protection inside their own box, but, not being protected by anything like bubble wrap or polystyrene, the marble board arrived in a number of larger and smaller pieces ....

The seller was very apologetic and immediately offered a full refund. In the end, as I was keen to keep the (undamaged) pieces, we agreed on partial refund, just for the board.

But of course, I now had pieces that needed a board .... two options, essentially: find a replacement board, or somehow repair the broken one. Another marble board that matched the pieces in size and colour proved elusive, and then I remembered kintsugi ... how about repairing the board kintsugi-style? If it didn't work out, I still had the option to keep looking for a replacement board.

As I wanted to make sure the glued-together board was supported in some way, I got a square of plywood and spray-painted it gold. I glued the pieces of the board to each other and to the plywood base.

I then used gold paint (rather than actual gold, I have to admit) to highlight the breaks, as well as the places where the lacquer had come off.

Done! It looks pretty good, I think, and the gold paint highlights the cracks and other damage in a very positive way, giving the board a character it didn't have before it broke.

So ... time to put the pieces on the board.

The full set definitely has more character now than ever before; just what kintsugi is all about .... Although I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying I should break all boards before adding them to the collection, this set surely has a unique place in it.