Module 1– Line, Shape, and Image
Read:
Conscious Grieving, Introduction through “The Physicality of Grief” (p. VII-28)
Art is a Way of Knowing, Chapters 2, 3, & 25
Spirituality and Art Therapy, Introduction and Chapter 1
10 Artists on Working, Living, and Creating Through Grief https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/25/arts/grief-loss-jesmyn-ward-richard-grant.html#link-69945c8
“Creativity is the ultimate act of engagement.” blog post by Jodi Rae
View/Listen:
How Artistic Creativity Redefines Grief podcast video (33 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6moptzfC1KY&t=31s
Grief is the unexpressed love… (2.5 min) https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18iB3Gy68c/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Side Effects (1.5 min) (Content Warning: implied suicidality) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN5BqCKO9DY
Note the way the artist “drew” sadness into the little characters in this video. How would you draw your grief in a figure of a cartoon? Create a single frame, or a comic strip to express this.
Britchida– https://britchida.com/ an artist who creates profoundly with simple shapes and lines from their own experience, often related to their grief Explore their art and choose something to spend time with this week, maybe trying out their style for yourself (try searching “grief” in the search bar for specific art around this topic)
Suggested materials:
large mixed media paper (11x14 or larger suggested)
4x6 index cards
tracing paper pad
drawing supplies (ex. pencils, pens, charcoal, oil pastels, sharpies, crayons)
optional materials
black cardstock
craft paper
white gel pens
sidewalk chalk
butcher paper
twine
Create (choose from the following prompts):
On a large piece of mixed media paper, experiment with different lines using varied drawing utensils. Move your hand fast or slow, press hard or lightly, create wavy or jagged lines, or lines that skip; notice the thickness of the lines you make and the colors you choose. How do you feel drawing and seeing the varied lines on the page? Does your grief feel thick, thin, shaky, forceful, tentative, angry, wispy? Let the lines speak for you. Do this exercise on different days and notice how your inner experience changes, or doesn’t.
Continue the practice of index cards from our session, “Grief One Day to the Next.” In a brief period of meditation or prayer, enter into your grief each day and explore the edges, the colors, the shapes. Translate what you feel into a simple expression on an index card using whatever materials speak that day.
Set up a few items that remind you of your loved one on a table or shelf. Using a piece of black or other dark colored card stock and a white gel pen, create a series of blind still life drawings using the simplest of lines. Look only at the items, and not your page. Let your hand and arm feel their way around the images, letting your emotions and memories interact with the process.
Explore the shape of your feelings: what shape is fear, anxiety, sadness, frustration, guilt? Are the edges sharp or smooth? The lines bold or timid? Is the shape multi-sided or fluid and amoeba-like? Do this with whatever materials feel the most resonant.
Begin to collect a list of metaphors and images that particularly resonate with you. Clip them out of magazines or thrifted books, print them off of the internet, or sketch them in your journal/sketchbook. Let yourself be surprised by what begins to emerge and how each image wants to interact with you in your grief.
Grief timeline walk: Unspool a long piece of twine (8-10 ft, if possible) in a hallway or other area of your home. Using index cards, and beginning in your early life, label the experiences of loss along the twine timeline. Then walk this timeline, pausing at each loss and offering a breath prayer of compassion, release, or whatever else feels needed. Often when we are tending to one loss, other losses emerge as needing some attention as well. Reflect in your journal when you have finished this practice.
Use sidewalk chalk to express with larger movements some of the above prompts. Alternately, tape butcher paper on your wall and do the same. Larger movement in drawing incorporates somatic benefits as well as creative and emotional ones.
Reflect:
In this season of life, how is your grief speaking to and through you? What is its voice like inside you? Spend some time reflecting and journaling, asking your grief how it might like to find expression and how you could offer the most tender care. Journal this in dialogue form, if you’d like.
What is your relationship with your inner critic? Does he/she/they come into play when engaging in any type of creative practice? What might need to be released and healed in you to be fully free of any barrier to your own creative life?
The soul often speaks with images instead of words. What images or metaphors show up frequently in your reflection, imagination, or dream life, especially in relation to your feelings of grief? What do you notice about these images? How do they serve you in your healing, or not?