preserves + jumping dust magic

preserves + jumping dust magic explores the impulse to save, store, and preserve pieces of life for another time. The work incorporates jars filled with nails, fabric, string, utensils, and other everyday materials. Some objects are set aside because their purpose has been fulfilled, while others are preserved with the intention of returning to them in the future. The jars function as metaphors for memory, postponed ambitions, unfinished projects, unresolved emotions, and the countless needs that accumulate over time. During years devoted to raising children, teaching, and caring for others, many ideas, creative pursuits, and personal aspirations were mentally placed “on the shelf” to be revisited later. The act of preserving became a strategy for navigating competing responsibilities, allowing certain parts of life to remain protected until attention could be given to them again. Throughout the series, containment is not presented as loss but as possibility. The preserved objects remain present, waiting. The work reflects on cycles of postponement and return, asking what we choose to save, what we release, and what remains quietly suspended between past intentions and future action.