This Used To Be Easy

Rheumatoid arthritis turned my world upside down. Among the many changes, one of the most personal was losing the ability to wear rings. Before the diagnosis, rings were part of my daily identity, objects of beauty, style, and sentiment. But as my fingers began to swell and each joint pulsed with pain, even the simplest act of slipping on a ring became impossible. I began to ask myself: What does it mean when something ordinary becomes impossible? For me, wearing rings was once a natural, thoughtless gesture. But after rheumatoid arthritis, that simple act turned into a reminder of limitation. In this piece, the rings are not symbols of beauty or desire; they represent the loss of ease, the small freedoms my body no longer allows. The rings in the artwork appear mismatched: too large, too small, awkwardly placed. None fit perfectly. This imbalance mirrors my own reality: the relationship between my body and these familiar symbols has changed. What represented adornment now reflects loss and transformation. Through this work, I sought to express physical limitation and to reveal the tender persistence of desire, the wish to hold on to beauty, even when my body no longer allows it.