From the musings of her husband, drafting thoughts at the midnight seam… 

I have spent a life chasing the wave that will not sit still, and still I tell you. The supreme paradoxical thing is a rough block that is too soft for her inner fire, yet too stubborn for the world to rake and burn.

Amber’s heart is carved that way. To a passing glance or the slightest touch, the surface seems unremarkable. Yet, if you press too hard against the grain, hidden splinters catch and pierce even the toughest skin. It is not an act of malice, nor mere self-preservation. It is her soul’s instinct to protect the raw, uncarved truth of who she is.

Her soul carries these sharp edges, grown from the seedlings of survival. A gentle wood does not survive the winter the same way. It is the knots and the grain fighting the chisel that make the print worth pulling.

What comes off her hand is never a finished thing, but a living line that moves like the great wave itself. I stay because a smooth block yields only flat, dead colours. But with her, every press of the ink against the stubborn grain pulls a truth so breathless and raw that I would spend a hundred lifetimes, and wear down every brush I own, just to witness the impression she leaves behind.

-L