I am at work on a composition centered on grieving and the sounds we make when we express sorrow. Part of this work involves my own search for activities and processes that let me sit with and experience my grief over the events of the past few years (not to mention the past few weeks).

Unsurprisingly, this path has been meandering and full of stops, and starts. In other words, improvised. 

One of the less obvious steps on my path to creating a musical composition* has been collecting posts and items from social media that, to me, are grief-related in some way. So for the past year or so, I have been saving tweets, texts, memes and other images in my phone. I did not know how – or if – I would use them; I simply knew that they were … connected. 

For a similar amount of time, I have been saving items that have broken around me — the mug my sister gave me for my birthday, a beaded necklace from a friend, the window of my car (which someone broke to go through my glove compartment), etc.. With my eye focused on grief and how we express it because of this composition, I having been taking notice of losses — even small ones – perhaps as stand-ins for the broken systems and events we are seeing all around us. Again, I didn’t know how, but I knew these broken things were connected to the piece I’m working to create.

…

In mid-October, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in the woods for a self-directed mini-retreat. As I prepared for my week away, it came to me to create a “jar of broken pieces,” through which I would reimagine and realign these broken things I had been gathering into a new form. So I headed to the woods with my broken bits and a loose plan for how to reassemble them. (And if that isn’t a metaphor for processing grief, I don’t know what is.)

I arrived during the sweet pre-sunset light and went down to the lake to greet the water. I spent the evening unpacking and setting up my “office” for the week.

On my second night (after a dinner and a ride in the kayak), I began to seriously consider how to work with the jar. I realized that to do the jar work, I wanted (needed?) to create a grounding space out of all those digital items about grief and sorrow. So I pasted the images, memes, tweets, and texts into a document and printed them out on the black and white printer.

…

The next afternoon (Day 3), I took my printouts and my broken things out to the porch and set up my camera so I could film myself assembling my jar. 

Once again intuition (spirit) spoke and directed me to embellish the printouts. I grabbed some crayons –pushed aside doubts about my drawing skills — and spent a couple of hours contemplating and embellishing the texts. After creating this “ground,” I recorded a short improvisation to visually and sonically document my progress. The next step was to fill the jar, but I knew I was done for the day. It was a gift to simply leave everything as it was and step away for the evening. I went for a walk, watched the sun set, had dinner and sent a video snippet of the day’s work to my mom and sister. 

Day 4 began with a long and roaming virtual visit with my mom and sis who provided thoughtful feedback and reflections about the video I had sent them. My sister remarked how I had invented a grief work process and confessed to tiny bit of envy that I had spend the day art-making. (We remarked how rarely Black women get time and space to digest grief and/or to make simply for making’s sake). This aligns with conversations I’ve had with other Black artists in the cities who are doing grief work. Another theme that comes up is the healing that happens as we work on creating the spaces and/or rituals that we intend to use with or gift to others.

…

I returned to the porch in the late afternoon to assemble the jar — another improvisation. I had to continuously let go of my expectations of the finished result so I could appreciate the process (I found some sounds I might use in the composition) and let the jar become itself. After adding the broken pieces, I added my breath and voice to the jar and closed it. 

I envision visiting the jar and interacting with it as I work on my composition. I think the jar wants some ribbon or other decoration or perhaps adding water or oil or honey to feed(?) the jar. And, I already have some other broken items I plan to add the next time I visit. In the meantime, I left the jar to sit with a view of the woods and changing seasons.

---

*This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.