we are built in water, 13:21
"the unknown before life and after death, the places we've been, the places we go bookend the transitions into and out of consciousness."
performed in Cape May, NJ, in 2019, accompanied by the earth, sea, and fog.
Grief is an ocean of tears formed over millennia -- a cumulative repository of our collective sorrow. My work is an immersion into mourning research.
Early in 2016, my husband and father died within days of each other, and though life-altering, my loss seems insignificant compared to the global crises we have since experienced. Millions of people have lost someone through pandemic-related illness, war, violence, climate crises, and even divisions of opinion. We are mourning globally, collectively. My studio became a recovery room, my work a salve for repair and a meditation on the lost or waning.
During the past six years, a phrase I instinctively knew was true would surface at odd moments; "In the end, all that's left is love." Through a deep dive into grief's chaotic rhythms, I found that grief is a sacred art, and it is impossible to grieve what we cannot praise or love. If the last six years have cemented one point, it is this; we are all intimately connected to the earth and our collective spirit. Love and praise of humanity with all its warts and problems is the ballast of peace. My mourning cry, an instinctive symphony of praise, is the sound of deep life-affirming love.