The Meaning

Experiencing grief is one of the hardest experiences humans are guaranteed to endure. When I was eleven, I was faced with that reality with losing my mom. Since then, art had become my therapy. I worked in grief expressive arts for years, both as a participant and facilitator for younger kids, and wanted to extend it into my professional design portfolio. Grief is something that sometimes cannot be explained in words, but in painstaking visuals. The feeling sometimes is just too much to vocalize.

Sadness in Symbolism

Years ago, I read a very valuable book for women that lost their mother. Funny enough, my cousin had accidentally sent me two copies, so there was an extra one I could repurpose for yet another expressive arts project. The descriptions of very relatable experiences with loss formed the background of the piece, showing that words CAN describe it, but do not match to how seeing it can do. Next, incorporating colorful images of crying pop-art women and then juxtaposing it with an image of myself in black and white shows how grief can seem like one thing, sometimes even being glamorized in media, but has a whole new meaning on the inside of someone who is actually experiencing it. The continued use of colors being juxtaposed with black and white reinforces this theme. 

Grief in Writing

Several quotes were important to include in this piece. Adrienne Rich’s quote, “The loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter, is the essential female tragedy,” fit very well into the tragic undertones as well as being specific to my personal experience. However, parental death is horrible no matter which parent it is, of course, so using cut-out letters from magazines to spell “when a parent dies” seemed like an appropriate conclusion. Lastly, the upper-right hand corner has the chapter subtitle, “The Seasons of Grieving: Mourning takes Time.” This is important as grief is not linear and cannot be rushed, as one must let time help them heal. 

Deep Design
Creating an expressive arts piece at a much more elevated and professional level really helped put all of my growth into perspective, as work expressive arts dating all the way back to sixth grade helped me fall in love with graphic design. Completing this just shows how rewarding it is to put tragedy into a physical medium as a way to help cope.