I originally imagined this category, GRIEF ILLUSTRATED, as a way to show and not always tell. To share grief-as-art and the art of grief without a lot of language. I find it’s hard to refrain from the language. You can read past iterations of GRIEF ILLUSTRATED here, here, here, and here.
On Saturday night of Labor Day weekend, I stood in front of the forty or so variously wardrobed folks in our troupe under an oak tree near the main stage in the last of the day’s semi-sweltering sunshine and asked passersby to consider the cultural artifact of a moment of silence. I asked if they could imagine flipping this reverential act on its head. To subvert it, to renew it, to work not against the material at hand, but with it. I asked them to listen for the bass drum on the other side of the park, for the gleeful cries emitted at the peeks and depths of the nearby rollercoaster. I asked them to listen for the heartbeat of the person next to them. I asked if they could take in all the pulsing, bleating, churning, and strumming of the arts festival around us—and in all of that, to find an inner, reflective moment in which to honor and pay tribute to someone or something they love or have lost. I invited them to observe a moment of chaos.
The following day it rained, slightly, and by evening the air was damp and almost cold—which felt wonderful. With the barefooted accordion player alongside me, hymning in a minor tone, I led our group past young white men on a grandly elevated, aggressively lit stage playing what might be categorized as “hardcore music.” Past rows of temporary toilets. Past VIP seating. Past prime rib sliders, french fries, crab cakes. Into a white box gallery which had been installed with a vivid, evocative and potent group show. I walked us into the middle of the room and, with a Britney Spears mic bent around my jaw, I asked the art-lookers to pardon our brief interruption. I told them we were on a journey—a procession, actually—and this was one of our stops. I told them we were all wearing mourning clothes, made by eleven local artists and designers, and, reaching into a gold-toned chainmail pouch, I told them that if our mission resonated with them, I had some mourning jewelry I could give them so they could wear mourning clothes, too. Several people came forward, and then several more. Some seemed amused, some looked a little stunned, some had tears in their eyes.
Later, after the performance was over and we returned to what the festival organizers called the Fashion District, one of the weekend’s other artists said to me, “I don’t really know what mourning clothes are.”
“Oh, we don’t really either,” I told them, “we’re all just figuring it out together.”
In other moments of my life, I’ve been called upon to dissect and account for much less interesting outfits, so while there’s a lot I’d like to say about the performances and the festival, for now I’m just sharing what I wore to lead this thing that I called Mourning Clothes. My goal was straightforward; I focused on the singular need that colors my personal experiences of grief: the need to be in conversation and shared processing with others. To be connecting and connected. To make of my whole self a walking, talking altar that might reach out and invite someone in.
~Feel free to click on any image to enlarge it.~