Artful Grief

Download or read book Artful Grief written by Sharon Strouse and published by BalboaPress. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Artful Grief is a decade long study of loss by an art therapist, in the aftermath of her daughters suicide. On October 11, 2001, Sharon received a phone call in the middle of the night from the New York City Police Department telling her that her seventeen year old daughter Kristin, had fallen from the roof of her college dormitory. So began her journey into the labyrinth of unspeakable grief. As the ?rst year drew to a close she found no comfort in traditional therapy, and no solace in spoken or written words. In surrender to her inner art therapists guidance, she began to create collages. She cut and tore images out of magazines and glued them on various size paper. The paper was a safe and sacred container, receptive to the fullness of emotion, story and paradox. Over time there was transformation and healing. Artful Grief A creative roadmap through violent dying and grief. A dose of soul medicine for survivors. A way to retrieve the pieces of a shattered life, with paper, scissors and glue. A resourceful tool for those suffering with complicated grief and/or PTSD. A place for the unspeakable to be seen and heard. A process to quiet the mind and open the heart. A visual experience of trauma images as illustrations of hope. A sample of prophetic dreams and meditations that are illuminating. A heartfelt sharing of intimate secrets for understanding and compassion. A surprising grief gift that is inspiring.

Download or read book Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief written by Diamante Lavendar and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2018-06-16 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This earthly plane offers much for us to learn: happiness, wisdom, loss, heartbreak, and enlightenment. It is a Pandora's box of emotions, situations, opportunities, and failures, all wrapped into a package we call life. Nobody is immune, but everyone has the opportunity to grow tall or wither like a flower in harsh light. It's completely up to us how we choose to respond. Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief is a gleaning of insights from artist Diamante Lavender. For her, life has been a long, difficult road, but it has taught many poignant lessons. Her poetry collection is an exploration of the human soul, a traversing of situations that life throws at us. Diamante has always been intrigued by the ability to overcome and move on to bigger and better things. She writes to encourage hope and possibility in those who read her stories. If she can help others heal, as she has, then Diamante's work as an author and artist will have been well spent. She believes that everyone should try to leave a positive mark on the world, to make it a better place for all. Writing is the way that she is attempting to leave her markone story at a time.

Download or read book Artful written by Ali Smith and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A playful, form-bending novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 'Playful and audacious' Independent Narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, Artful slips slyly between fiction and essay, guiding the reader thrillingly through a sequence of ideas on art and literature. With Smith's trademark humour, inventiveness, poignancy and critical insight, this is unique experiment in form, style, life, love, death, immortality and what art can mean. Based on four electrifying lectures given by the author at Oxford University, and exploring the explosive connections between art, story, memory and grief - Artful is a tidal wave of ideas to blast away the cobwebs and change how you see the world. ***** 'Artful is a revelation; a new kind of book altogether . . . makes you glad to be alive' Jackie Kay 'Powerful and moving' London Review of Books 'Blending of criticism and fiction, Artful belongs in a genre of its own . . . Joyful for anyone interested in the art of writing, and living, well' Anita Sethi, New Statesman

Download or read book Grief Cottage written by Gail Godwin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the 2020 Grand Prix de littérature américaine Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017 (Top 10) Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books 2017 Indie Next Summer 2018 Pick For Reading Groups The haunting tale of a desolate cottage, and the hair-thin junction between this life and the next, from bestselling National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin. After his mother's death, eleven-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there thirty years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. Eventually she was inspired to take up painting so she could capture its utter desolation. The islanders call it "Grief Cottage," because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane fifty years before. Their bodies were never found and the cottage has stood empty ever since. During his lonely hours while Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting and keeping her demons at bay, Marcus visits the cottage daily, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. Full of curiosity and open to the unfamiliar and uncanny given the recent upending of his life, he courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda. Grief Cottage is the best sort of ghost story, but it is far more than that--an investigation of grief, remorse, and the memories that haunt us. The power and beauty of this artful novel wash over the reader like the waves on a South Carolina beach.

Download or read book Artful Grief written by Sharon Strouse and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2013-02 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Artful Grief is a decade long study of loss by an art therapist, in the aftermath of her daughter's suicide. On October 11, 2001, Sharon received a phone call in the middle of the night from the New York City Police Department telling her that her seventeen year old daughter Kristin, had "fallen" from the roof of her college dormitory. So began her journey into the labyrinth of unspeakable grief. As the first year drew to a close she found no comfort in traditional therapy, and no solace in spoken or written words. In surrender to her inner art therapist's guidance, she began to create collages. She cut and tore images out of magazines and glued them on various size paper. The paper was a safe and sacred container, receptive to the fullness of emotion, story and paradox. Over time there was transformation and healing. Artful Grief A creative roadmap through violent dying and grief. A dose of "soul medicine" for survivors. A way to retrieve the pieces of a shattered life, with paper, scissors and glue. A resourceful tool for those suffering with complicated grief and/or PTSD. A place for the unspeakable to be seen and heard. A process to quiet the mind and open the heart. A visual experience of trauma images as illustrations of hope. A sample of prophetic dreams and meditations that are illuminating. A heartfelt sharing of "intimate secrets" for understanding and compassion. A surprising "grief gift" that is inspiring.

Download or read book The Art of Death written by Edwidge Danticat and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the bestselling author of Claire of the Sea Light Edwidge Danticat’s The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. “Writing has been the primary way I have tried to make sense of my losses,” Danticat notes in her introduction. “I have been writing about death for as long as I have been writing.” The book moves outward from the shock of her mother’s diagnosis and sifts through Danticat’s writing life and personal history, all the while shifting fluidly from examples that range from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude to Toni Morrison’s Sula. The narrative, which continually circles the many incarnations of death from individual to large-scale catastrophes, culminates in a beautiful, heartrending prayer in the voice of Danticat’s mother. A moving tribute and a work of astute criticism, The Art of Death is a book that will profoundly alter all who encounter it.

Download or read book Seasons of Grief written by Claudia Coenen and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2024-01-18 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The quiet letting go of Autumn, the reflective stillness of Winter, the bright rebirth of Spring, and the flourishing warmth of Summer trace the natural path of grief as it grows and changes to fit the spaces left behind by those we love. Easy-to-use exercise guides and activities invite readers to explore the changeable nature of grief through the ebb and flow of the seasons. As well as contributions from diverse creative practitioners, poems from Dr. Robert Neimeyer and reflections from Claudia Coenen create a starting point to delve into the emotional context of each chapter, encouraging the reader to view each personal account and case study through the lens of a different phase of grief. This heart-centred, compassionate approach infuses bereavement therapy with much-needed warmth, supporting clinically-proven techniques to guide users towards practical, healthy ways of processing their loss. Bringing together voices and art from across the spectrum of creative grief therapy, Coenen provides an accessible, compassionate guide to supporting those coping with bereavement throughout their journey.