LETTING THE LIGHT IN.

“Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.”

An excerpt from the poem by Henry Scott Holland, “Death is Nothing At All”. This poem was read at my late partner's memorial service. It has been at the forefront of my mind since I began working on this series. When I started thinking about this work I was interested in creating spaces that one could peek into, capturing glimpses but always incapable of seeing the whole of the interior. This body of work is not functional, but like the vases and containers I normally create it does hold something.

Navigating grief is a complex journey. Acknowledgement of the inspiration buried in the back of my heart has been part of this journey. A common theme in all that I make are little vignettes of other places, indistinct and not exact. They are no particular place or building but imaginary vague places that one can get lost in, imagining oneself in another place, and for this work it is the intrigue of spaces that you can almost see but not quite. In my experience, grief has always been this feeling of just barely grasping the essence of something, it is there but not there.

An unexpected addition to this body of work has been the light that comes into these spaces. For me, this has also become an exploration of letting light into darkened corners. I like to think of this as the metaphor for where I am in the moment in relation to the loss. Grief can be such a dark place, but as you move through it we can come to a place where we can find beauty and solace in the memories. The building has become a symbol for how I navigate keeping him close while acknowledging that I have a very different relationship with the loss. There is beauty in the light that only exists with the presence of the shadows and darkened corners. 

Started in June 2022. Still actively working on this series.