I’ve been sitting with this idea of paired emotions. As we round the corner of Autumn and speed into Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, the gratitude we are steeped in for all that is going well in our lives also shares space with grief. I’ve been chanting these words together like a mantra: Grief & Gratitude. Grief & Gratitude. Grief & Gratitude.

Museofemo has always asked folks to share any emotion. For the rest of 2022, it’s asking folks to contemplate grief & gratitude and to submit visual representations of those emotions.

Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Chandelier of Grief’ at the Tate Museum in 2016.

The Chandelier of Grief by Yayoi Kusama strikes me as a Grief Palace wherein one wanders amidst the magnitude of grief and tiny points of light merge towards massive reflections, a living metaphor so grand that it has entirely changed the way I conceptualize what grief feels like.

Disclaimer: Yayoi Kusama has not submitted representations of her work to Museofemo, unfortunately.

But I was compelled to include this multilayered, multidimensional sculpture in celebration of its existence.

Grieving the loss of her Uncle, who passed the day after Thanksgiving this year, Linda Friedman Schmidt shared “TEAR” made from discarded clothing and placemat.