Griefwork & Artifacts Series
Thursday, Dec 3, 5pm Loss and Found Words
Sunday, Dec 13, 2:30pm Stitching Death Salon
Saturday, Dec 19, 2:30pm Book of the Unsaid
You don't have to find your own words for grief. You can borrow someone else's. In this gentle evening of blackout poetry, a book at the end of its life is taken apart, and what's left becomes compost for something new. Using curated pages provided (or any pages you'd like to bring from books), you'll circle the words that pull at you in pencil, then black out the rest with markers. What stays is a short poem about loss, hiding inside a sentence written for some other reason entirely. You'll make two poems, with space for curious conversation about death and grief, and fold them into a small folio to carry home. No pressure to be a writer, and nothing to read aloud unless you choose. This is part one of a series of three gatherings for making something by hand around death, endings, and loss. Come to one or all three. You’ll leave with something you made, and a little more room around what you’re carrying.
Loss and Found Words
Thursday, Dec 3, 5pm
$35 per person or $75 for all three workshops
Hands that are busy make talking about loss easier. In this conversation, held in the spirit of a death salon, you'll choose your own fabrics from a basket of scraps, and bind them into a small cloth book using a simple running stitch, which you'll learn in about two minutes. No experience is necessary. Then we talk while we stitch: curious, unhurried conversation about death, grief, and what we carry or set down, with a few prompts to spark it when it lulls. Stitch whatever you like onto the pages: lines, circles, squares, squiggles, shapes, and words. Blank pages are welcome too. You can speak, or simply listen and stitch, and both are a full way to take part. You'll go home with a cloth book that is yours. If you'd like, bring a button or small scrap of cloth from someone you love or have lost, a person or an animal companion. Please choose or cut it at home so you can take your time with it. If you don't have anything, or it doesn't feel right to bring it, there will be buttons and cloth to choose from. This is part two of a series of three gatherings for making something by hand around death, endings, and loss. Come to one or all three. You’ll leave with something you made, and a little more room around what you’re carrying.
Stitching Death Salon
Sunday, Dec 13, 2:30pm
$35 per person or $75 for all three workshops
Most of us carry things we never said, or haven't said yet, to someone who's gone, someone still here, a younger self, or an identity we've left behind. This time together gives those things a small place to live. You'll fold a single strip of paper into a small accordion book, then fill its panels with words, drawings, and stickers: what I wish I'd said, what I carry, what I'm leaving behind, what I'm still learning. Then we talk while we work: curious, unhurried conversation about death, grief, and what we often leave unsaid. You'll be guided through each panel with a few prompts, and you can follow them or ignore them. Nobody reads anyone else's book, and you share only what you choose. The book goes home with you. If you'd like, bring a small flat keepsake to tape in, like a ticket stub, a postcard, a recipe card, or a copy of a photograph. Please bring copies only, so your originals stay safe at home. This is part three of a series of three gatherings for making something by hand around death, endings, and loss. Come to one or all three. You’ll leave with something you made, and a little more room around what you’re carrying.
Book of the Unsaid
Saturday, Dec 19, 2:30pm
$35 per person or $75 for all three workshops
Who is your instructor?
For more than twenty years, I led technology teams at Etsy, Spotify, Universal Music Group, and EMI. What drew me to that work was never the technology. It was people, and the question of what it means to show up for them in complexity. I've been in rooms where a lot was at stake, and I've learned, repeatedly, that how we move through uncertainty matters as much as what we decide.
I carried all of that with me when I left. I'm a certified Co-Active coach, a trained death doula, a hospice volunteer, and a Reiki practitioner. I'm also an artist, and queer, and someone who has lost family and friends. That grief lives in this work. I'm not standing outside life's passages as a neutral observer. I'm someone who has been in them, and keeps being in them.
The thread running through everything I do: transformation happens by composting what's already there. The past isn't something to discard, it's material. What has already happened in you is what makes the next thing possible.
If you are navigating a transition, know that you don't have to do so alone.