Black Heaven was made while listening to my mother speak about the World War II bombing of Tokyo. As she remembered, I worked—each mark formed in the presence of her voice. Etching and drypoint are pressed into fragile Gampi paper, whose thin fibers register pressure, abrasion, and hesitation. The plate is bitten, burnished, erased, and returned to again and again, allowing damage and care to exist side by side. Gampi does not hold firmly; it absorbs softly. Memory enters the work not as image, but as touch, repetition, and the quiet persistence of what cannot be erased.