I am honored to have a blog post, written by yours truly, featured on the Grief Dialogues website. The post is a short essay describing how my mother helped me–even in death–to claim and grow into my identity as an artist.
Grief Dialogues was founded by Elizabeth Coplan, “an award-winning writer dedicated to bringing death and grief out in the open.” A woman whose values are very much aligned with my own!
I found the Grief Dialogues website a few months ago when I was searching for ways to connect with others interested in the intersection of art and grief. When I saw that their motto was “Out of grief comes art,” I knew I had to connect with them!
Soon I was invited to write a blog post for the site, and attending Elizabeth’s event, Grief Dialogues: Live Performance through Reimagine*.
I was amazed by the live performance event, where two short plays about grief and death were performed live via Zoom, one of which was written by Coplan herself. The stories were thought-provoking and relatable and I was amazed by the performers’ ability to deliver moving performances, even when they weren’t in the same physical space as their co-stars! After the performances finished, the audience was invited to share comments and questions in discussion with the event hosts, performers, and a certified Grief counselor. That’s right. We, the audience members, were allowed to linger and share any thoughts or feelings that had been evoked while we were witnessing the performances. I found this new way of holding a performance to be incredibly refreshing!
*For those unaware, Reimagine is a non-profit organization devoted to “sparking community-driven festivals and conversations that explore death and celebrate life.” I have attended numerous events through Reimagine’s online festivals during the pandemic, and am honored to be included in their current festival Creating Space, through which I am offering my Leaf Crafting Workshops for the Ghost Tike Memorial Project.
The Grieving Artist 