⚪ What I Carry: The Weight of One Suitcase and Five Silver Rings

Cheryl Quejada Canning | Sydney   07 May 2026 — 2‑minute read

Excerpt

I’ve lived most of my life in motion, learning to travel light and hold on only to what carries meaning. Today, everything I own fits into a single suitcase — and among the few things I keep are five silver rings that have followed me across decades. They’re not valuable, but they are anchors: small symbols of memory, identity, and the quiet truths that shape both my life and my art.

What I Carry: The Weight of One Suitcase and Five Silver Rings

I’ve lived most of my life in motion. Growing up, we moved from place to place, following my father’s work. New walls, new streets, new neighbours — constant change shaped the way I see the world. It taught me to travel light, to let go easily, and to hold on only to what carries meaning.

That instinct shaped my creative practice long before I ever called myself an artist.

Even now, my life fits into a single 32‑kilogram suitcase: my paints, my brushes, a few books, and the canvases I refuse to leave behind. I don’t own much, but everything I keep has earned its place.

Among them are five rings I’ve carried across decades — four sterling silver, one bronze. None are valuable in the traditional sense, but each one holds a story, a moment, a version of myself I once was. They remind me that meaning doesn’t come from the object itself, but from the life attached to it.

Four silver rings and one bronze snake ring, all given to me years ago and still part of my journey

My creative practice works the same way.

I don’t create to decorate. I create to preserve — to hold the pieces of my inner world that would otherwise disappear in the movement of life. My work is built from memory, instinct, and the quiet truths that follow me from place to place. The rings are simply symbols of that continuity: small anchors in a life shaped by motion.

Somewhere along the way, I realised the things I keep mirror the way I create.

Art, for me, is the act of gathering what stays.

Every canvas becomes an archive — of emotion, of lived experience, of the stories that refuse to fade even when everything else changes. I paint to give form to the things I cannot carry physically but carry deeply.

I don’t need many possessions. A suitcase, a few artworks, and the rings that travel with me are enough.

Because what I carry — in my hands and in my practice — is not about quantity. It’s about meaning. It’s about memory. It’s about the inner world that shapes every stroke, every decision, every piece I create.

My art, like my life, is built from the things that stayed.

As I continue to move through places, seasons, and versions of myself, I’m learning that my work is not shaped by what I leave behind, but by what chooses to stay.