Desert Jewels (Scattered to thrive).

Desert Jewels explores the layered narratives of resilience, adaptation, and self-reinvention in unfamiliar landscapes. The work speaks to the experience of thriving in environments that are not naturally cultural to outsiders, reflecting on the strength it takes to root oneself in foreign soil. It also honors the enduring spirit of enslaved people—those who endured forced migration across the sea—transforming pain into legacy, and survival into brilliance. In this piece, resilience becomes a kind of beauty—rare, radiant, and hard-won.