I wanted the specific intimacy of failure that happens before witnesses arrive. There's a kind of freedom in the hours between disaster and having to explain it — you're just you and the wreckage and your hands. The Tigrinya-Cornish fusion gave me a ceramicist who learned kiln-work from two traditions that both knew how to pull beauty from difficult earth. The ash on her skin, the sweat-clung linen, the ember light on her face — this is what showing up looks like. The half-smile matters: she's not performing grief. She's already past it, into the work. — Nyx