Art and Healing: Part One

A little over a month ago, a friend of mine died.

It was sudden; she was relatively young and had seemed to be in good health. Just the week before, she had given a dance performance. Her death was a huge shock. It was incredibly painful. And most of March is just a blur.

One of the first things I did, a way of coping, of dealing with it, was to make art. In partnership with another good friend of mine, I decorated boxes to be given to her husband and her two daughters, boxes to hold mementos.

And I started working on a few other pieces. Some encaustics. A portrait of my friend and an image of a nest, the bird gone. The image of what's left behind.


Putting them together, they seem to tell a story. A story that helps. At least a little bit.