Art-Making as a Grief Ritual
This post was written by guest writer, Anna Hogan, a ReNew York Ambassador and Costume Designer in Lexington, KY.
As I started back at my arts practice – of bible reading, journaling, and painting every morning, I realized I was holding a tremendous amount of emotion that I didn’t quite have words for.
Typically, I would be able to recognize straightforward feelings of happiness or sadness; love or longing. But what I was experiencing now was weighty and complicated and seemed to be coupled with anger. This led me to a place of curiosity, where I began to ask questions about what I was experiencing.
The looming heaviness that had taken up residence in my body needed a name. A well-timed meeting with a trusted friend brought some insight. She said, “I think we all may be experiencing grief.” I began to recognize that the art of processing grief was foreign to me. I didn’t lean into it easily. The sadness of Covid, loss, and disruption of life was bigger than I realized. The days seemed longer than normal, and my mind felt bewildered.
What was I supposed to do? Ignore the feelings? Wait for them to go away on their own?
Although foreign to me, I’ve discovered that other communities have rituals for processing grief. For instance, I remembered the classic Disney film, Thomasina, has a scene where Scottish children make a funeral. They “cast” themselves as “criers” (or professional mourners) to help evoke grief.
But I wondered – if other communities have criers, what do I have? What would a grief ritual look like for me?
The word “ritual” means “a gesture done with emotion and intention that connects us to the unseen.” So I started my own ritual based just on that definition – meditating on Psalms through painting and writing. The Psalmist’s recollection of God’s faithfulness, his questions about suffering, and his desperation to ask for help gave words to my own feelings; then, painting and writing helped me slow down enough to process the grief I was feeling.
Together, each time invited me to release my bottled-up tears; and I released them all into reflective, healing art. Releasing my feelings was more than catharsis; I wasn’t just releasing them to the air, but releasing them to God.
After doing this for a while, I found my heart slowly changing. And then, on Easter morning, I got to contribute to my church’s service with a different kind of creativity. I made an empty tomb spilling forth with spring-time flowers. And I watched it sit amidst our community as they sang hopefully about the promised resurrection.
It can be hard to enter into grief, and open yourself up to feeling those difficult feelings. It can be even harder to see the value in creating something to explore and express your grief, instead of just glossing over it.
But I’ve found art, making, and welcoming grief to be valuable beyond what I could have anticipated.
My creative rituals of grief have led me back to hope again.
