Rise : Artwork 4

Latin adverbs reveal character. Fortis means brave, but in Latin adjective form — the word describes a permanent quality of a person, not a one-time performance. Semper — always — removes even the theoretical possibility of exception. The phrase does not say be brave, or brave when required, or aspire to bravery: it defines a person as constitutively, continuously, without-interruption brave. The Roman military tradition that produced this kind of language understood bravery not as a feeling but as a practice — something that had to be embodied so completely that the question of whether to act no longer arose. The lion in the Western tradition carries the same logic: it is not represented in the act of attacking but in repose, strength gathered rather than expended. A home office, entryway, or any space that belongs to someone for whom bravery is a daily practice rather than an occasional event.