IN-PERSON LECTURE

Healing with Gold: The Japanese Tradition of Kintsugi on Ceramics and Beyond
Meher McArthur, Art Historian and Curator

7:00 - 8:30 pm, Wednesday, October 7, 2026

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Kintsugi - the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold lacquer - has its roots in the tea ceremony over 400 years ago. Tea ceramics were too precious to discard, so instead, they were lovingly repaired using lacquer which was then dusted with gold to form slender golden veins that not only held together the vessel but enhanced its beauty and value. Today, the technique has spread beyond Japan and beyond the world of ceramics.

Meher McArthur, Japanese art historian and curator of the new exhibition Healing with Gold: The Japanese Tradition of Kintsugi on Ceramics and Beyond at the Japanese American Community & Cultural Center in Little Tokyo (from September 12 through October 18, 2026) will give a slide presentation drawing on artworks featured in the exhibition and beyond. She will discuss the technique and its variations, its current worldwide popularity as a metaphor for healing and embracing imperfection, and ways in which artists are exploring its philosophy in a diverse range of media.

LECTURER

Meher McArthur

Meher McArthur is an Asian art historian specializing in Japanese art, with degrees from Cambridge University and London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She was Curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA (1998-2006), Creative Director for the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, Pasadena (2014-2020), Academic Curator for Scripps College, Claremont (2018-2020) and Art and Cultural Director for JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles (2020-2022).

For over a decade, she has curated traveling exhibitions for International Arts & Artists (IA&A), most recently Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper (2021-2024) and KIMONO: Garment, Canvas, and Artistic Muse (2025-2029). She recently curated the local exhibitions Sound of Water; Feminine Expressions of Fluidity (currently on view at the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens until January 3, 2027), SHIKI: The Four Seasons in Japanese Art at the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens (2023), Elegance and Emotion: The Unique Dolls of Kimiko Muraoka Koyanagi at the Shumei Hall Gallery, Pasadena (2024), and TATSU: Depictions of Dragons in Japanese Art at the Japan Foundation Los Angeles (2024).

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