When I was a child, my dad created a koi pond in our backyard with his own two hands. As he built his family and a life, the koi pond flourished along with him, becoming a gathering place for friends and children. When his life began to degrade and fall apart, the pond deteriorated with him. Today the koi pond is filled with dirt and my father is dead.

Ceremonial Connections welcomes visitors into a hand-built adaptation of a tea room, a space drawing inspiration from the ocean and commemorating my dad's koi pond, using these bodies of water as themes in the selection of objects. The room serves as a portal to a spiritual world, one where visitors are invited to explore death, grief, and the cycles of life.

The room serves not only as a means of commemoration and exploration but also as a gesture. As I continue to move through life, developing an inner world, my metaphorical home, room by room, I use the act of building and maintaining a physical home as a gesture to the internal realm, as a way to speak to the unseen world, to say: You are worth building.

This project incorporates ferrous and nonferrous metalwork, ceramics, woodworking, sewing, weaving, and natural dyeing.

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