“As a celebration of my friend’s 31st birthday, four of us gathered for the Fresh Air Modern Kintsugi Workshop and Guided Meditation (NY) on Saturday, November 1st, 2025 at 11am. Our group is experienced in crafts and craft classes, excited about learning new things, and open-minded about our expectations. Unfortunately, our experience and open-mindedness did not improve the disaster that was this Kintsugi class.
I would like to begin by saying that what we did over the course of 3 hours in this class was not Kintsugi. What we did was break a bowl, glue it together with superglue, and then paint the cracks with gold. It is offensive and disrespectful to the artform this class claims to emulate to call this Kintsugi. To profit off of this blatant cultural misappropriation is shameful.
I have never had an experience so wasteful of my time, money, and perfectly good pottery, and yet so stingy in resources (Noah poured each participant 2 tablespoons worth of tea, ran out of water in the kettle, and chose to refill only the tiniest amount; we ran out of plastic gloves and Noah suggested we could just use one each before he pilfered the studio for another box; we had no tools with which to distribute the gold/epoxy mixture and instead had to smear it across the tiny cracks with our gloved fingers). We paid $130 EACH for an experience that taught us nothing of value and couldn’t even provide a full cup of tea.
Our instructor, Noah (although, I can’t be sure this was his name, as he did not introduce himself at the beginning of class and then whispered his introduction into our awkward silence), failed as a leader. He did not introduce the concepts, teach us anything of value, or guide us through the process. There was no explanation of the steps we would be engaging in or a roadmap for how the morning would progress. Instead, he allowed us to stand outside on a cold and windy morning until 5 minutes past the start time, prompted us through a “guided meditation” that consisted of no guidance other than “to breathe,” allowed us to sit for 20 minutes after breaking our bowls with no instruction or context, and offered no helpful input when participants asked for assistance. Noah also lacked critical time management skills, evidenced by the plethora of dead time throughout the process and the fact that the class was supposed to end at 1:30 but, when our group left at 2pm, most of the other people were still struggling to figure out how to get the gold to stick to the superglued cracks of their bowls.
This class was shockingly wasteful, disrespectful, and useless. While I genuinely believe that we should be refunded the exorbitant price of our admittance, I do not expect that an organization that engages in such shameful practices will have the integrity to take accountability for their failures in this way.”
“Not what I anticipated. Too many people in a tight space. We were told to arrive 15 minutes early, but the door was locked and we had to call someone multiple times for the instructor to come down and let us in.
We were not provided tools to work with and instead had to use fingers to spread the glue. Although there was a meditation in the beginning of the class, the class itself didn’t feel meditative.
We were also all given tea to drink from our bowls, but the process took at least additional 10 minutes as we watched the instructor filter water, boil it, and make tea to then give us 2 sips each. There was no explanation of why the tea was being served.. to welcome us? Part of Kintsugi? I would have rather spent 10 extra minutes on the project.
We broke the bowls, sanded the edges, and then used superglue to put them together. After that we applied Epoxy and gold powder with gloves fingers (crude process in comparison to traditional Kintsugi where brushes and other tools are used) and wiped off the rest with isopropyl alcohol.
Although the instructor took a few minutes to explain what Kintsugi was, he didn’t mention the traditional binding agents and process. I looked it up later and it’s a lengthy endeavor using natural adhesives, not superglue.
Favorite parts of the experience:
1. Breaking the bowls
2. Meditation
Potential improvements (in my view!):
1. Give lay out of the class
2. Cut out the tea
3. Provide tools
4. Explain the traditional technique
5. Have some examples of finished pieces for inspiration”
“This was a very poorly organized class even the entry instructions were incorrect. Furthermore, the class size was so large we barely had any room. I was terribly disappointed and left after an hour. I lost my money but gain back my time. I was hoping for so much more.”
