Big Sur, CA
I asked neighbors for their thumbprints thinking I could weave equality from grass and skin.
Some refused: they knew what fingerprints mean in the wrong hands, the wrong files. I didn't weave the refusals. Only what was given.
The textile was finished full of gaps anyway.I made a ceramic that exploded in the fire like a small failure of gravity.
Now the fragments live in charcoal. The grass holds what it can. The thumbprints float between the fibers like guests who might leave at any moment.
I held back the whole time, afraid of being the only voice speaking up, of standing alone while the community turned away.