Window boxes, tattoos & ceramics
I think about Rahviance every single day.
I cry at least once a week missing her. They’re not usually long cries, but long enough to last for one song that reminds me of her.
Since Rahv got really sick, there’s never been a question in my mind that I’d get a tattoo for her after she passed.
I wanted to make sure whatever I got was really specific to our friendship. We met and became friends on the first day of our trip to Venice and Rome for a Typography Workshop that we took through the School of Visual Arts.
We romped around Venice and Rome together, and had some of the best times of my life. At the end of the two weeks abroad we had to present a final project: based on what we’d learned over the two weeks and our own creative ideas, we had to design a new typeface and present our creative process.
I decided to create a full set of drop caps with each one incorporating a window box.
However, the night before it was due I was having trouble in Illustrator and seriously falling behind. Everyone was working in our individual hotel rooms so I called Rahv in a mini panic attack. She immediately came down to my room and I told her what I was trying (and failing) to do.
“Pssssht. Girl, gimme this,” she said as she sat down and pivoted my laptop to square her view. She swiftly and effortlessly fixed what I was stuck on and showed me what to do next.
“See? It’s not that big of a deal!”
She always had a way of putting things in perspective when I was being, well, ME.
Ever since then, window boxes have always been a reminder of that trip, that projec,t and how different the outcome might have been if I’d never met her.
Tattoo by Alyssa Szatny (kindredspiritstattoo.com)
One thing Alyssa , my artist, added from her own artistic viewpoint was leaving a door open as opposed those that were all shut in the imagery I originally sent her.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked it but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. As she was tattooing me I thought about it more and I finally realized that the open door makes me feel like Rahviance is still around somewhere, like it represents some sort of portal to her that I still have access to. My eyes fill up each time I think about it and I have a great deal of gratitude that she was here I was lucky enough to have known her. And when I look at this, she doesn’t feel quite so absent from my life.
I’ve put off sharing this for months. Somehow, it felt like sharing it was closing a chapter that had to do with her, as if letting others know about it somehow meant that my grieving process was finished and I was leaving her behind.
Not that you’re asking, but I really enjoy ceramics.
I took Ceramics II in the Spring for funsies because I’m a HUGE dork, and because I had such a great experience in Ceramics I. I don’t often post about it probably because I’m not super good at it (by my standards, anyway. I know, I know: sick perfectionist mentality. I’m working on it!)
I am very, very bad with The Wheel™ and have very little patience for it. However, I do okay molding by hand and I find it to be far more therapeutic.
Our second assignment in Ceramics II was as follows:
✨ Create a piece that is specific to preparing, serving or consuming a particular food.✨
You couldn’t copout with some BS about a bowl that serves cereal as well as salad, soup,…yadda yadda yadda. It had to be specific, like an apparatus that really catered to serving sushi or something.
I sat on my stool in the studio thinking about food that I crave and/or cherish because of its meaning to me. I tried to think about dishes that my (super Italian) mom or grandma often made when I was a kid, but I came up empty. Nothing I imagined creating for those special foods would enhance the experience of consuming them.
I started thinking about why it is that we crave or seek out certain foods.
Beyond preventing death, people seek out food for the social experience, textures, hits of dopamine, nostalgia, or for one very common reason: comfort.
When people seek food for comfort it often has to do with processing grief, and mourning something very important that once existed and no longer does: a relationship, goals, expectations or dreams, or a loved one. Grief has no timeline or shortcuts to get from hurt to healed, it can be especially disorienting, and everyone handles it in their own way.
I asked some of the other students — as well as a few friends outside of class — what helps them while they’re grieving. Some of the answers were:
Crying
Food
Meditation
Spirituality
Prayer
Healing crystals + incense
Tarot
FaceTiming/Zooming with loved ones to talk about their grief
Reading
Smoking
Going off the grid completely and binge watching something
I wanted to make something that could assist in the general grief process with enough versatility for practically any use.
I also felt it could serve as a physical space reserved for grief. Some of us don’t want to carry the heaviness around all day, every day even if we’re not directly in touch with it every minute. It can be comforting to know that you can visit one specific space to work through your grief, leave it there and come back to it later.
I decided to make a grief plate.
Grief plate
This plate has different sections including:
A built in stand to prop up any number of items (Tarot spreads, photos, an iPad for movies, a phone, books, etc.)
An incense burner that can double as an ashtray
Separate sections for food, crystals or anything else someone may want to include
A tissue holder
Since grief isn’t pretty and it’s a very raw experience, I chose not to smooth out the surface did not include a gloss finish. The zig zag patters around the perimeter serves as a reminder that grief is not linear, it will fluctuate, and that we all shoud give ourselves grace as we navigate the grief process in our own way.
With humor, heart and heaps of gratitude,
