Memories through the Lens of Grief
Grief, to me, has an amorphous quality like fog. It is formless and shapeless, but it has density to it that makes it feel cumbersome to carry. Sometimes you’ll be moving through grief without even noticing it until you're in the thick of it, surrounded on all sides, and uncertain of where you are or how you got there.
Memories Through the Lens of Grief
40”x30” Original Mixed Media on Gallery Wrapped Canvas
Grief, to me, has an amorphous quality like fog. It is formless and shapeless, but it has density to it that makes it feel cumbersome to carry. Sometimes you’ll be moving through grief without even noticing it until you're in the thick of it, surrounded on all sides, and uncertain of where you are or how you got there.
I created this painting in late October, early November of 2020 after my father passed away. My father was an alcoholic and was mostly absent from my life. The relationship we did have was strained, but it improved when I started seeing a therapist and came to accept the person he was and our relationship for what it was.
Early into the 2020 year my father was put on hospice care for advanced COPD and Emphysema from years and years of smoking. It was around this same time, in a session with my therapist, that I realized I was full of so much grief that I had never acknowledged around my father, the absence of my father, and the relationship we never had. At the time, my belief was that grief was reserved for death and loss, but I now understand that this is not the case.
Before he passed away, I grieved the father I didn’t have and the father I wished I could have had. Grieving my father’s absence felt like moving through the thick fog of a rainy fall morning that is dense and lingers late into the early afternoon before the sun can burn it off. It felt like I was moving through it for weeks, sometimes unsure if I was on solid ground or floating in water, and everytime the shadows of life would start to form around me and I would think that I was getting oriented in the world, the shapes would change and I'd find myself adrift again.
But just like with actual fog, time, like the sun, slowly melts it away.
After my father passed away in October of 2020, the grief shifted and changed, changing with it the landscape with which I had previously become familiar. The grief of his death felt more like the fog that rolls in and pools up atop a river in the evenings and then dissipates in the morning. It felt more temporary, more weatherable. It still occasionally rolls in at certain moments of remembering, but it’s much softer and doesn’t linger quite so long. In truth, it has been much easier to grieve his death than it was to grieve his absence.
The process of grieving the father I didn’t have actually helped me come into a greater place of acceptance for who he was and the relationship we did have. It was because of this I was able to spend some of his last moments with him without expectation or need and that I was able to reconnect with the few fond memories we did share from our history before he passed away.
It was when I was painting this piece, and reflecting on our history and those few fond memories that I realized that there is something about grief that softens the sharp edges of painful memories and helps us come into a deeper relationship with peace.
Collectors Club Members will get exclusive access to this original painting on Friday, November the 19th. The painting will then become publicly available on November 20th. To make sure you don’t miss out on collecting your ornament, join the Collectors Club here!
Seed Planters Hand-Painted Ornaments
For the first time ever, I am offering hand-painted Christmas ornaments in my Holiday Shop this year and I am so excited! Painting ornaments is a new tradition I hope to incorporate as part of my holiday season. In fact, I named these ornaments “Seed Planters” in honor of the people out there forging their own paths by weeding out the old traditions they have outgrown, and seeding new, soul-nourishing traditions to cherish for years on.
Seed Planters
One-of-a-Kind, Hand-Painted Christmas Ornaments
Coming Friday, November 19th to Collectors Club Members
Public release on Saturday, November 20th
“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
-C.S. Lewis
For the first time ever, I am offering hand-painted Christmas ornaments in my Holiday Shop this year and I am so excited! Painting ornaments is a new tradition I hope to incorporate as part of my holiday season. In fact, I named these ornaments “Seed Planters” in honor of the people out there forging their own paths by weeding out the old traditions they have outgrown, and seeding new, soul-nourishing traditions to cherish for years on.
The holiday season brings with it the nostalgia of long-held family traditions. My most favorite memories of the holiday season are from when my grandmother, Marcella, was still alive. I come from a pretty big family and for the week of Christmas all of my grandmother’s children (5 total) and their children (12 total) and their children (11 at that time) would gather together at her house on the hill the week of Christmas to eat, play games, watch movies, play Yahtzee, and reconnect over the miles and years of life that had grown between us.
When my grandmother passed away, my mother moved into her home and has kept the tradition alive, taking up the mantle of host, and keeping the house on the hill as the heart of the family; the point of gravity drawing us all back together to reconnect every year.
One of the very first Christmases my husband, Adam, and I shared, after my grandmother had passed away and long before the pandemic imposed restrictions around people gathering together indoors, Adam walked through my mom’s house counting all of the people. He comes from a smaller family, so he wasn’t used to holiday gatherings quite like ours. I remember him coming up to me, somewhat amazed and saying, “There are 29 people in this house right now.”
I absolutely loved this tradition in our family. Yes, it gets a little hectic, especially when it comes to sleeping arrangements for everybody, or who’s turn it is at the yahtzee table, but I love getting to see my family and their families, and hear their stories and see how they’re growing.
For many of us, though, this past year meant that a lot of our long-standing family traditions, like the tradition of packing 30 people into the house on the hill, had to be broken and new traditions had to take their place.
Because we weren’t spending as much time at the house on the hill (we visited briefly outdoors around the fire pit), this meant we spent more time at home celebrating with our own little family and being more intentional about the time we spent together and making our home all the more cozy and festive. I have since spent more time thinking about what holiday traditions are worth keeping, like holding special people close and letting them know how much I love them, and what traditions I am ready to let go of, like avoiding vulnerable conversations and the assortment of casseroles my mom makes (if you read this, I love you mom!).
These ornaments, to me, are representative of the traditions we choose to keep and the new traditions we choose to make. Each of these ornaments are hand-painted and each one is completely unique, no two are exactly alike. I painted them intending for them to be incorporated into long-held family traditions and, like the good traditions that endure, be passed down as precious heirlooms for generations to come.
Collectors Club Members will get exclusive access to this collection of ornaments on Friday, November the 19th. The ornaments will then become publicly available on November 20th. To make sure you don’t miss out on collecting your ornament, join the Collectors Club here!