After working on Pre-Occupied for several years, I found myself returning to the Mottainai series. Although the original statement for that series holds true for this new iteration, the imagery of mending and repair had taken on new meaning. After the shock of being suddenly widowed in 2018, the global losses of the pandemic, and the deepening fractures in American society, I was thinking constantly about how we rebuild lives that have been altered by forces beyond our control, and how we can find joy in the process.