The sheet of copper I left on the workbench overnight has already started to darken at the edges. I hadn’t done anything to it yet, just cut it to size and walked away, and already the reaction was underway. Every mark I make will fade. The metal is oxidizing as I shape it, but somewhere along the way that oxidation stopped being the problem and became the work’s language. For a long time I treated entropy as the enemy.

There appears to be a universal motion in the cosmos — a drift toward what we call disorder. Paint peels off window frames, sidewalks crack where tree roots push through, metal fences turn orange with rust. As a maker, this reality generates a strange tension. Every mark I make will fade, yet something in me insists on making marks anyway. The metal I work with is oxidizing even as I shape it, but that oxidation becomes part of the work’s language.