Japanese masters repaired broken vessels using a lacquer mixed with powdered pigment, often gold, in a process called Kintsugi. Rather than hide the damage, the technique illuminates and spotlights the scars. Being neither Japanese nor particularly skilled in painting, I nevertheless felt an urge to care for these photographs I made of the US flag.
It’s a record of failure, transformed like a Catholic in confession. Shocked by gold current, the unconsidered becomes current again.
———
America has fallen from its pedestal and cracked to pieces like a once-precious vase.
We grab the bits we like best and scrap the rest.
Morning now, and off we go to work in the city. The ceaseless subterranean waves of subway cars carry us like grains of sand to our destination.
American flag stickers adorn each car like an epaulet, and offer a visual state of the union. A few new pristine replacements gleam with the green sheen from the florescent tube lights, but most look like they’ve been to hell and back (or at least as far as Flushing Main Street, Queens).
Amongst the grit and soot, you can see your reflection in the steel.
