(WIP) Memento Mori: Stories of my Father's Travel

Work in progress This ongoing series of ceramic vessels is shaped by the stories my father told of his naval tours through Southeast Asia, and by the tattoos he collected during his years in the navy. In the final weeks and months of his life, these stories and images became a source of endurance, a way of remembering movement, youth, and identity beyond illness. Each vessel acts as a memento mori: a held object carrying fragments of travel, memory, and mortality. Using the visual language of American traditional tattooing, drawn directly from my father’s tattoos, the surfaces map places he passed through and moments he carried with him. Ports, symbols, and motifs become markers of both geography and time. The vessels are not replicas, but acts of preservation. Through clay, image, and repetition, the work seeks to hold his stories in material form — allowing memory to remain tactile, portable, and present.