Good Grief

Silkscreen and colour pencil | 19.5” x 25.75” cotton rag paper with 20” x 26” mylar sheets

I have always hesitated to name these feelings I hold as grief, reserving the word for mourning those who have passed. But grief has many different faces, and I do not only grieve those who I have lost; I grieve the things that have been left behind, that have changed, that could have been, and that I never had. 

I grieve for my father's time away from home, but I do not think of him or my childhood with sadness because of it. I grieve for my relationship with my brother before we grew up and apart and how things have changed since our parents divorced. I grieve my Nonna's cookies that she no longer remembers how to make. I grieve my baby blanket, my first tangible experience of loss. But through all of this, I still look at these memories and relationships removed from my mourning. Grief can be all-encompassing, existing between empty and full as we remember and cherish what we have lost. 

Printmaking elicits the process of remembering. With screen printing, the image is burned into the material to be used to print, remaining there until you wash it away and leaving behind a ghost of what it was. This act of printing, of having and using, losing and staining, speaks to the nature of these experiences I grieve. We have, we live, we lose, and we remember. There is a difference between missing something and mourning it, as explored through these prints, and that difference is where I name my grief.