A reclamation of authorship.

For years, we lived inside roles we never chose: scapegoat, lifeline, escape artist, survivor. Our identities were shaped in response to rupture—crafted in crisis, contorted to meet expectations, measured by how well we held things (and people) together. But no longer performing, bracing, or rescuing, we are choosing. We are rewriting.

This collection marks the transition from surviving to self-defining. Each piece reflects an archetype we once embodied—and the slow rituals that have become our compass back to self.

In creating them, we chose materials that mirrored this evolution: ochres and red earth unearthed from the Southern Appalachian landscape, clay foraged by hand, hemp and leather embroidered like scar tissue, and hardwood frames handcarved by Connor. Some are filled with resin, glassy and pristine—others are left cracked, exposing the sediment below. Each one lives in the tension between concealment and exposure, identity and essence, performance and presence.

We wanted to show what it means to grow without abandoning the grit that formed us. These works don’t demand attention. We wish for them to speak with quiet conviction. They offer a different kind of freedom—one not tied to loudness, but earned through stillness, truth, and choice.

This is what happens when the roles dissolve and the raw self remains.
This is what healing looks like when it isn’t curated.
This is what it means to begin again, with your own hands, on your own terms.

For anyone rewriting your own story, untangling themselves from old roles— may this work keep you company on the way home.