Category: Grief

No Words, 2020

Grief, Processing, Healing

Helen Blumen made this quilt as what she calls “grief work” after her son took his life, taking her title and imagery from the conventional words of sympathy so many offer to the bereaved: “there are no words.” Similarly, as Blumen writes, “I found myself unable to use words to share my son’s situation, my unfathomable grief, and the feeling that I would never fully make sense of this unexpected loss.” Using layers of white and off-white vintage linens and laces to represent negative space, Blumen “conveys the many-layered, messy, never-ending task as I try to deal with an irreplaceable and devastating loss and the complexity of my grief.” The lack of color contrast and wavy textures, she explains, is intended “to force the viewer to struggle to grasp for words just as I do.”

Cotton. Made and lent by Helen Blumen

Mourning Needlework, 1805-1810

Grief, Sentiment, Remembrance

Mourning scenes were popular in the arts at the turn of the nineteenth century. Schoolgirls choosing these projects might have been inspired by sincere grief for lost relations or might simply have liked the popular sentimental imagery. 

Judith Peterson, the probable maker of this scene, never knew her brother John commemorated here. No other record exists for either Sally, another sibling, or for Eliza Perry—possibly Judith’s granddaughter. This textile becomes the only known testimony to their lives. 

Silk embroidery with watercolor background; framed with reverse painting on glass. Gift of Helen Perry Viertheer 7141

Rage made Beautiful: Covid-19 Data Quilt, 2020-22

Mourning, Testimony, Rage 

The Rev. Michelle Bolt began this quilt in early 2020 to record Covid-19 cases and deaths in Knox County, Tennessee where she lives. The color key is shown at the left. 

Each square represents a week, with cases color-coded from lowest numbers (pale green) to peaks (deep pink) and deaths from white (no deaths) through shades of gray and black for increasing number of deaths. 

Bolt intended to stop when there were three rows of pale green, but as that never happened, the ribbons extending below the edge represent the continued cost of the pandemic. 

Artist’s statement: 

“As a priest and a mother, I infused this quilt with daily prayers and tears, art emanating from a soul cracked open—from an event that has no foreseeable end.”

Cotton. Made and lent by Michelle Bolt

Skeleton suit and Family Record, 1822

John’s suit, woven and sewn by his mother, might have been saved as a memento of three-year-old John Briggs’s shift from baby gowns to boy’s clothing. But when he died later the same year, saving it became instead an effort to remember John. Its size recalls his body which once filled the garment.

John’s birth and death are noted on the Family Record along with the later birth of another son named John—a common practice at the time.

Linen suit with brass buttons. Linen embroidered with silk thread . DAR Museum  91.269.1-2

Janiszew Labor Camp, 1994

Color and life and serenity on one side, colorless and chaotic activity on the other: the stark division of the frame emphasizes the difference between life before and after the German occupation and suggests the dichotomy of good vs. evil.

Coming to America, 1996

One of the last panels* in Esther’s story, this image shows the hope and promise represented by the Statue of Liberty and the shores of the United States. 

Embroidery and fabric collage. Loan courtesy of Art and Remembrance

*The full cycle of panels, and their stories, can be viewed at artandremembrance.org

Embroidery and fabric collage. Loan courtesy of Art and Remembrance

*The full cycle of panels, and their stories, can be viewed at artandremembrance.org