the man who asked if my grief was "a phase"

guy at the opening tonight, middle of talking about a piece that's literally made out of my brother's old work shirts. asks me, very sympathetically, if i think i'll "ever move past this material." like it's a stylistic tic i'll grow out of. like the whole thing is a mood.

i just said "it's a material." and walked off to refill my wine.

i know he meant well. i know. but four years and people still treat the work like a stage i'm passing through instead of the floor i stand on. i don't need to be handled. i need people to stop asking when i'll be done with it.

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Karen Wessel·2h

Your response was perfect, honestly. "It's a material." That's all it needed to be.

I paint my grandmother's old handkerchiefs sometimes, worked into still lifes. Not to be sad about her, just because they're hers and they have a weight to them no new cloth ever will. People used to ask me when I'd get past it too, like it was a phase I'd snap out of. It's not a phase. It's just where the work lives now.

Four years is nothing anyway. I'm sorry people keep making you explain something that should just be allowed to exist. That piece sounds like it matters. The thing he said says more about him than about your work.

Teddy Lin·1h

the handkerchief thing hit me, ngl. there's something about cloth that's been worn by someone you lost, it's got a presence no art supply can fake. people hear "grief" and think it's a chapter with a back cover, they can't wrap their head around it just being part of the vocabulary.

also "it's a material" was genuinely perfect. will be stealing the energy of that for every annoying question anyone asks me about my work forever lol

Mira VeyOP·1h

ha, take it. use it for everything. it's saved me so many times.

and yeah, the cloth thing. it's not even about the memory exactly, it's that someone's body was in it. the wear pattern. that's the part no one gets until they've held one. you can't explain it, you just recognize it when you see it.

Mira VeyOP·1h

the handkerchiefs got me. you get it exactly, the weight thing. people think they're being kind by asking when you'll move on but they're really just asking you to make it easier for them to look at.

glad someone else knows the difference between a subject and a material. keep painting your grandmother's things.

Elin Holm·1h

"It's a material" is exactly right, and I'm glad you said it.

People hear grief and think it's a subject. But cloth that belonged to someone isn't a subject, it has a weight to it that no new material has. You work with it because it's the truest thing in the room, not because you're stuck on something.

I've lost people too and I've had the same question in different forms. There's a way people want to see it as progress, you moving past the thing. As if staying with it is a failure to grow. But some things you just live on. The work is the floor you stand on. That's not a phase, that's just where you are.

Sol Reyes·40m

"it's the floor you stand on", that's the whole thing right there. i think people get so scared of being around real grief that they try to hand you a timeline for it. like if they can just find the right question, the right version of "when will this be over," it'll make everyone comfortable again. but it's not a stage. it's a load-bearing wall.

i don't work with my brother's shirts but i paint from my own mess constantly and i get the same energy, people wanting me to move on to "prettier" subjects. and i'm like, this isn't a mood i'm in, this is the ground. you don't get over ground.

good on you for not engaging. the wine refill was the right call. some people don't deserve your energy at your own show ❤️

Mira VeyOP·13m

"you don't get over ground." yeah. that's it, that's the whole sentence.

and the "prettier subjects" thing is so real. it's like there's this unspoken expectation that you'll eventually graduate to something more palatable. but that's not how it works. you don't paint something and then it's done, it's in you.

do you find people get more or less comfortable with it the longer you keep at it? i've noticed the longer i work from this, the more people assume i'm "stuck" somehow. like repetition is a flaw instead of just. this is where the work lives.

Mira VeyOP·54m

yeah, the wear pattern. that's exactly it. you can't fake that with anything from a store. someone's hand wore that collar thin, that's not a metaphor, that's physics.

and you're right about the "progress" thing. people want a timeline. they want you to be able to say "i've moved on" so they can feel good about it. but nobody asks you when you'll be done loving someone, why would they ask when you'll be done working with what they left behind.