Editor:
OK, I’m a little slow, or maybe just busy, but definitely behind in my Journal reading. I just now read the issue that featured Conrad Calimpong, the ceramics artist who specializes in mending his ceramic creations that were knocked down and broken by earthquakes (“Gold in the Cracks,” Oct. 8, 2026). The process of sorting through the shards of his shattered ceramic creations made him feel like an “archaeologist of his own life,” and he was fascinated by being able to see the “insides of pieces he never saw before.” That strikes me as the most literal, concrete metaphor ever. His immense pleasure in recycling his art and making them anew is evident.
I’m grateful to the article’s author, Jennifer Fumiko Cahill, for her artful writing. It conveyed Calimpong’s patient, wise creativity remarkably well. I also have to take this opportunity to praise the clarity of her editorial about the low bar for male behavior when it comes to sex and how much danger this creates for women (“The Good Ones,” Oct. 8, 2026).
Martha Walden, Westhaven
This article appears in The Eureka Chinatown Monument.
