During a studio visit this past summer with the talented artist Anna Simson, I showed her some flower drawings I did in 2021-2022 after my dad died. I had forced myself to wake up early and do at least one colored pencil drawing a day before I started my then-day job. I produced very little else during that window of time and was fueled by high levels of caffeine and sugar. I was in a dark place but, by golly, I would make some nice art that made me happy.
Much to my surprise Anna reacted with a question “Were you massively depressed when you made these?” I cackled with delight at feeling seen.
Last week I released a podcast interview with Amber Jean Young that we recorded back in September 2023 in which we talk a lot about losing our parents. Similarly, Amber’s work is a lot about processing the grief of losing her mother Pegi Young. It has that same flavor of determined cheeriness to it, like a person walking headfirst into a snowstorm wearing a bright puffy coat.
I remember when I lost my dad in 2021, I would see Amber post about her mom and take notes. I felt so isolated and confused about how to process my loss. I was feeling so much and it was so loud that I wanted other people to know. I also wanted clarity for myself.
Social media can feel so performative, but Amber’s posts were thoughtful, authentic celebrations of her mother’s life. Seeing her posts made it more ok to share notes about my dad both online and in the podcast.
Because I couldn’t write very well at this time, I transformed my artwork to try and process these big feelings. I began plein air painting, and making landscapes and images of veils rather than painting the portraits and interiors I had been doing leading up to the pandemic.
Amber said her artistic practice also transformed during the grieving process. She moved from primarily working in sculpture to paintings of plants and flowers. In 2022 she presented a solo show of work dedicated to her mom called Pegi’s Garden. The work is bright, with a slight sense of disease caused by the swirling patterns and sometimes jarring color combinations.
Amber shares in the interview how acceptance, along with art, has been one of the main tools to get her through a lot of challenging times and past the regret stage of grief.
“And then you have to circle back around to acceptance, which is I gotta say- it's endlessly annoying to find myself constantly spinning my gears on something that I'm like, Oh shit. Had I done that differently, maybe, I don't know. And then I always land back at the same place of being like, well? Acceptance of things were the way they were. Events unfolded because of the conditions of the moment, you know? Or where you were in your own journey at the time and where they were in theirs.” - Amber Jean Young
A friend of mine who works in hospice care shared with me that she believes regrets should be listed as a stage of grief in addition to the 5 better-known ones because of how natural they are in the grieving process.
Another evolution in Amber’s art that came out of this time is her interest in urns. When she went to find one for her mom, she was disappointed by the selection which was serious and expensive. This inspired her to start making urns that she would want for mom and for herself.
“I don't have any expectation that people would necessarily even use them as urns, like with cremains inside of them. But they are made in the event that you want to actually use them for somebody's cremains, then like, go hog. It's ready for you, you know?” - Amber on her urn sculptures
Grab Amber’s book of drawings called Shelter in Place which catalog the drawing-a-day works she made throughout the first two years of the pandemic. What I really love about the book is the way that the color and subject matter - while they are mostly flowers and other plant life - evolve depending on what’s happening that day.
It reminded me, or perhaps spelled out in full color, that we as artists are constantly responding to and internalizing the energies of the world around us. It feels important to have an outlet so that we don’t store it all in our bodies. We have to get it out or all that stuff is just going to sit there or manifest in some other less helpful, less creative way.