An Unexpected Companion

I sit alone in a small sunlit room. It is scattered with laundry, soccer cleats, dog hair and opened cans of LaCroix I never seem to finish. There is the faint sound of construction, lawn mowers, and shuffled songs from a beloved album, Folklore. I sit at an old kitchen table painting and cutting paper. Each cut reminds me of my own pain. 4 difficult years with no time to breathe. Wesley’s suicide. Jim’s suicide. Covid. And then my world stopped. My Dad died, along with my creativity.

For many many months I felt like a blank canvas. Empty and raw. I buried my grief as deep as it would go so I could stave off the pain and maintain a sense of normalcy in my life. Life was full of forced smiles and distractions. I became the human equivalent of a whack-a-mole game. Each time I think I had pushed an emotion down, it would pop up somewhere else. It became harder and harder to get through the day-to-day challenges of life. It was time to address the ever so obvious elephant in the room. I greeted my elephant and welcomed grief to sit with me at the table.

Grief and I sat together. Day after day at that old kitchen table. I learned grief was not my adversary but rather my companion. Together, we began to work. It took time for me to re-engage with my art but slowly, with each brush stroke and snip of paper, I opened up my wounds. Wounds I had sewn shut without cleaning. Out poured sorrow, anger, and confusion and my work became a testament to my journey with my unexpected companion. It was my first artistic collaboration. I didn’t exactly think it would be with grief, but rather some artist I admired-but this collaboration will be the most rewarding of my career. I discovered by engaging with my grief, I was not just creating art, but rather unearthing the catharsis within.

Grief became my greatest teacher. Through creating again I learned that healing was not about hiding from the darkness but rather acknowledging its place in my life.

My newest collection, The Pursuit of Joy, is an honest portrayal of the journey through despair and the glimmer of hope that remains. My grief has not been defeated but intertwined into my healing. When I look at my art I see not just a reflection of my struggle, but the powerful reminder healing is about finding a way to coexist with grief. Understand it. And turn it into something profoundly beautiful. Or rather the ability to make sadness look like it’s having a dance party.

Love,

Shannon