The Catalogue

Paper · QuietJob 31. A diary with every angry page torn out and kept.I rebound the torn pages in the order they were ripped.Noted: the fury and the tenderness had used the same ink.Thea Lockwood Answer it Clay, glass and lacquer · TenderJob 88. A bowl dropped at a wedding, seventeen pieces.The owner wanted it to look unbroken. I filled the seams with gold.Noted: she kept the bowl and stopped apologising for the day.Aiko Brandvold Answer it Hulls and mechanisms · BriskJob 212. A station clock stopped at ten past four for six years.Nothing was wrong with it. Only one person had ever wound it.Noted: a clock keeps the time of whoever last cared for it.Marit Enge Answer it Cloth and leather · WryJob 57. A wedding dress, unpicked and returned as a quilt.I kept the lace and sent back the rest.Noted: people want the thread, not the occasion.Odile Sarr Answer it Wood and strings · TenderJob 140. A violin cracked down the top in a flood.The crack still shows, with a small cleat holding it from inside.Noted: the sound improved wherever the wood was held.Lucienne Tran Answer it Hulls and mechanisms · BriskJob 19. A rowing boat that took on water for nine summers.The leak was never the hull. It was one seam under the seat.Noted: the part nobody sits on is the part that fails.Birdie Ashworth Answer it Clay, glass and lacquer · WryJob 66. A teapot in two hundred pieces, delivered in a shoebox.Four months. Two shards missing. I made them from a different clay.Noted: a repair can be honest about what it lost.Nunzia Castellano Answer it Cloth and leather · WryJob 103. A coat taken in at the shoulders every autumn for years.This time I let it out.Noted: the best news a tailor gets is a wider seam allowance.Wilhelmina Aziz Answer it Cloth and leather · QuietJob 77. A pair of boots, resoled for the fifth time.The leather above is older than the owner's marriage.Noted: some things are worth fixing because they were never new to you.Ophir Katz Answer it Wood and strings · QuietJob 12. A cello belly, thirty years unopened.Inside, a pencil note from the maker to whoever came next.Noted: I was not the first one told to be patient.Samanta Villaroel Answer it Clay, glass and lacquer · TenderJob 150. A window with one blue pane missing since the war.I cut the new pane from a bottle the family had kept.Noted: light takes on the colour of whatever it passes through.Rhoswen Pryce Answer it Hulls and mechanisms · BriskJob 94. An accordion that had not breathed in a decade.Forty leaks, each one smaller than a hair.Noted: it is rarely one large break.Ilka Neumann Answer it Wood and strings · TenderJob 121. A stool with three original legs and one borrowed.There were initials carved under the seat, so I sanded around them.Noted: the marks are the point.Adaora Nwankwo Answer it Paper · WryJob 45. A letter folded so long the creases had become words.I flattened it a millimetre at a time over a week.Noted: some folds are better left where they fell.Philomena Arkwright Answer it Clay, glass and lacquer · QuietJob 8. A lacquer box with a thumbprint pressed into the finish.I layered over it thirty times and left the print visible.Noted: patience is only the next coat.Yoon Seo-yeon Answer it Wood and strings · WryJob 160. A church piano out of tune on exactly three notes.They were the three the choir sang flat on purpose.Noted: some wrongness is agreed upon.Bernadette Haywood Answer it