The Art of Grieving | Sheila Collins

Event Planning and the Hospitality of Safe Air

by Sheila Collins | May 9, 2024 | Art & Life, Book Excerpts, book promotion, Celebrations, Community, Gatherings, Grieving, Health and Wellness, Personal Stories, Publications, The Art of Grieving, the Big Body

“Clean Air Started Here,” declares the banners on the main street of Donora Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. The signs refer to a tragic incident in 1949 when the town suffered an air inversion incident that caused the smog from the steel industry furnaces to hover low...

How Visual Arts Help Us Grieve

by Sheila Collins | Apr 4, 2024 | Dances, Health and Wellness, History, Past Events, Personal Stories, Self-Care, The Art of Grieving

Freud got one important thing wrong about grief. I discovered this when my experiences as a mourner did not always jive with what I had been taught as a social worker and practiced as a therapist. During the time of my university education and study of the great...

Grieving Our Covid Losses

by Sheila Collins | Mar 28, 2024 | Art & Life, book promotion, Celebrations, Community, Duality, Grieving, Health and Wellness, History, Institutional Loss, Past Events, Personal Stories, ReImagine, The Art of Grieving

Like many other writers during the Covid pandemic shutdown I decided to use the time I was being given to write a new book. For a grief advocate the situation was offering continuous, unprecedented, multiple examples of losses in need of processing. And, at the bottom...

The Art of Dancing on Behalf of Peace Part 2

by Sheila Collins | Feb 29, 2024 | Celebrations, Dances, Duality, Environment, Family, Gatherings, Grieving, Health and Wellness, Self-Care, social justice, Songs, The Art of Grieving

“What is she doing? My 3-year-old grandson William’s voice echoed throughout the large meeting space at my 31-year-old son Kenneth’s memorial service. Hearing that voice, and the question that I imaged many other people were asking themselves, I stopped what I was...

Finding Joy Amidst Evidence to the Contrary

by Sheila Collins | Dec 21, 2023 | Celebrations, Duality, Family, Gatherings, Grieving, Past Events, Personal Stories, The Art of Grieving

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go.” The saleswoman in the consignment resale shop turns the music off, or down so low we can’t hear it. I’m fine with that because rather than get me in a holiday mood, the music seems to remind me of all I...

Grieving to Overcome Hate

by Sheila Collins | Nov 30, 2023 | Art & Life, Book Excerpts, book promotion, Celebrations, Community, Environment, Family, Gatherings, Good Will Come, Grieving, History, Past Events, Personal Stories, Publications, The Art of Grieving, the Big Body, Writing

I didn’t see the National news item when it was broadcast across the gigantic flat TV screen at the airport this morning. But I saw its effect in the eyes of my traveling companion. As he described its message to me, the churning sensations in my gut reminded me of...

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Learn the Many, Magical Ways Art Transforms Grieving!

(No art skills required.)

Loss is inevitable, yet too often we bury our grief, pretending we're OK when we're not.

In my new book (COMING SOON), I'll share some uncommon notions about grief and how the arts, and art-making, have transformative powers that take us to the heart of the matter.

Event Planning and the Hospitality of Safe Air

How Visual Arts Help Us Grieve

Grieving Our Covid Losses

Finding Joy Amidst Evidence to the Contrary

Grieving to Overcome Hate

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