Processing Grief Through Art

All of us can think of artists who processed their grief through their art. I quickly thought of Evard Munch (Death in the Sickroom), Kathe Kollwitz (The Mothers), and Eric Clapton (Tears in Heaven), and I’m sure you can add to the list. It might seem unusual to be creative in times of despair, but creating art gives your mind a safe place to rest while it contemplates the tougher issues you are dealing with. This explains the success of art therapy and the many ways art has entered our communities to help us ancknowledge and respond to complicated situations of loss.

This past week, I came across another example of processing grief through art. The Nettle Dress is a beautiful, deeply spiritual look at the way one person responds to grief. Allan Brown and his dog Bonnie wander the woods near his home where Allan rediscovers nettles. He marvels that such a plant, noted for its stinging needles, was once used to make cloth. With help from online makers, Allan begins to experiment with making nettle cloth.

When Allan’s wife dies unexpectedly, he decides to gather nettles to make enough cloth to make a dress. Allan says that cloth is with us through our entire lives, “swaddling clothes to burial shrouds,” and that making a nettle dress seems an appropriate way to honor the memory of his wife. Over the next few years - yes, years - he diligently continues this project, finally finishing a dress his daughter models. You can watch the movie trailer here on YouTube.

This gorgeous film is available online for a fee which works out to about $16.90 USD. If you have any interest in textiles or in using art making to process grief, I highly recommend it. It’s about 68 minutes long.

In the film, Allan mentions The Wild Swans, a Hans Christian Andersen fairly tale. In the story, a young princess named Elisa makes eleven nettle shirts to reclaim her brothers, the princes, whom the wicked Queen has turned into swans. Read the fairy tale here.

In my own journey with my son’s battle with Chron’s Disease (see January 26, 2025, post), I decided to make a stitched piece to mark the way that Chron’s has become a part of my life. I once again turned to artist Mirjam Gielen (@Mirjam Textiles) for ideas on how to respond. I decided to use her instructions on stitching cell structures to stitch what Chron’s looks like under the microscope. By no means is the finished product a scientifically accurate work¹, but the stitches gave focus to my days. I noticed early on how “pretty” the pink and purple image of Chron’s looked, but my real feelings came through in the Braille word I’ve stitched above the word “Chron’s.” I’ll leave it to you to guess what that word is.

This week, take a little time to remember how you’ve processed grief in your own life. Has it made you grow, become stronger, given you wisdom? Or has it debilitated you, weakened your resilience, and made you angry? There is no correct answer, and there is no correct way to feel. Grief comes as it will in all its many forms.

For me, grief always seems harder in the winter, so I look for any signs of spring I can find. Today I noticed two very tiny periwinkle flowers in the grass, and although my winter roses, also known as Lenten Roses, are not aspiring to anything at the moment, I’ll keep looking. When I saw the little periwinkle flowers, I recalled this passage of scripture from Song of Solomon 2:11-13a. I first heard it on the tv show The Waltons being read by Michael Learned, in her role as matriarch Olivia Walton. After a period of grief, Olivia, feeling somewhat better with the return of spring, reads:

¹¹ For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;. ¹² The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come.

May it be so, and soon. Until next time!

1. When I showed this piece to Josh’s surgeon, she asked, “What are those circle things?” Clearly, my depiction of Chron’s under a microscope is less than ideal. Lol!