China
I am drawn to the beauty and obsolescence of my family’s antique china, much of which now sits packed away in boxes in my basement. Lovingly collected by generations of women before me, each pattern was chosen to reflect their individual tastes and the lives they aspired to create as they entered adulthood. Many of these complete dinner sets were selected as wedding china, reserved for special occasions and carefully stored away the rest of the time.
The pieces we continue to use are often chipped, fragile, and easily broken. In this way, they become a metaphor for the gender roles and expectations we inherit from our mothers, grandmothers, and the generations before them—traditions that may be worn, fractured, or no longer entirely useful, yet remain difficult to discard.
The rituals surrounding formal meals and the use of fine china have largely been abandoned, and yet I cannot bring myself to part with these objects. They exist in a space between sentiment and utility, simultaneously treasured and impractical. Through them, I am interested in exploring the ways we preserve, inherit, question, and carry forward the objects and expectations that shape our understanding of family, womanhood, and home.