kintsugi / some days I wake up feeling less than whole

Today I announced the release date for my second single, You’re a Better Friend, a song I’ve become more & more in love with over time, and I wanted to share a little about it - and the philosophy that inspired both the artistic concepts, but also the song itself.

Years back I had the opportunity to travel to Japan as part of a dance group, a time I will never forget and which impacted my life deeply. By that point I’d been fortunate to live in, and travel to, quite a few different places in Europe & North America, but I’d never been to somewhere so utterly out of my realm of experience that every moment was like learning to live all over again.

From how people address each other with reverence, to the almost meditative peace on public transportation, the way living spaces are arranged, food presented - I was enamored with all of it.

One of the concepts I came across, which really struck me, was that of kintsugi - the art of repairing broken things in such a way that they not only remain functional, but also become more valuable through the process of repair.

As someone who has struggled to feel like a whole person throughout my life - like a collection of fragments trying to piece itself together - this philosophy spoke to my heart.

Years later, through therapy, I began to experience what it felt like to accept and integrate all that I am, and embrace the healing work as part of myself.

Not only that, but through being accepted as the the whole me by Rezal has been a transformative process - which honestly became the inspiration for ‘You’re a Better Friend’, and the visuals for the shoot. The whole song is about how despite my best efforts I will still wake up on some days and feel totally disjointed - and on others I feel like everything comes effortlessly, like I’m the fully kintsugi’d version of myself; and through it all I am accepted, loved, and cherished as I am, even when I struggle to see all of me.

I wanted to mirror that in the shoot, so using reference images from pottery repaired in the kintsugi method I came up with this hanging backdrop idea that we played with - it could either be a supportive backdrop or an obstacle; it could be played with, or left out of the picture entirely.

‘You’re a Better Friend’ comes out April 28th. I can’t wait for you to hear it.