Grief Synergy

The making of this photograph

Grief Synergy found a home in the Remedy Catalogue and was released on 22/2/22 as a Limited Edition photograph of 100 copies only.

Grief Synergy uses nature, Kintsugi and colour psychology to create a piece of artwork which allows those who are grieving to feel acknowledged. It recognises their pain and path towards peace and offers friendship. Grief Synergy is about slowly accepting loss and allowing your grief to become a part of your life as your love leaves your physical world and takes up a permanent place of residence inside your heart.

Recent events in my own life provided inspiration for this story. I’ve done a lot of personal processing, thinking and research on grief, guilt, sadness, shock and anger in the last few months, I guess all of these emotions fall into the catch all term of grief. It has been a messy ride and it is no where near over but I got to the point in the last few weeks where I was asking for peace. I wanted to wake up, walk outside and breathe in the cool, early air and claim today as being a beautiful day once again as I used to.

Someone I loved and cared for was gone, spiritually still here of course but physically gone and there was nothing at all on this earth that I could do to change that. I hated being miserable but understood it was a necessary part of processing what had happened. I came to realise that many, many people are carrying varying degrees of grief with them through every single day. I have friends who have lost young children, friends who have lost a sibling, friends who have lost a parent and their last remaining family member. In my portrait business I have photogrphed families who were about to lose a child or a parent. I wondered how they managed, how they manage to function and get through each day.

I read a quote about grief

I read a quote about grief not going away or getting easier, the only option was for grief to become a part of your life. Things turned here a little. I could see how people need to find a way that works for them to allow their grief to become a part of your lives. One way for me to do this was by creating this artwork for you all and I appreciate the fact that I have this platform, the skill, creativity and ability to do so.

In the last few weeks I have been expanding my indoor plant collection. I have enjoyed having a few plants around over the past few years even though I am not a gardener at all. I figured if I had been able to keep 3 plants alive for a few years and I should be right to get a few more. 3 plants have now become 14! That is 14 and counting as I see a few more places in my home that could be filled with some greenery.

One of my new plants is a baby Monstera. It is a miniature version and has the sweetest heart shaped leaves. I saw it in the nursery and thought how lovely it would be to see little green love hearts sprinkled around my home. Those little green love hearts caught my attention each day several times most likely as my baby Monstera lives just inside my back door but also because of their shape.

One particular day I was working in my office and a slight breeze was making those little green heart shaped leaves wave. I found myself watching them for a few minutes and my mind ran away as it does. If I could imagine a version of my heart to be any colour it would be green, still inquisitive, curious and full of life and love… it just had a few cracks in it which would make things crumble from time to time. This is where the idea for a new Kintsugi artwork was born.

Creating a concept

I planned and brainstormed a concept, having everything completely ready before clipping one of those little green heart shaped leaves from its stem. I apologised profusely and wagered the fact that it would be worth it and this little leaf would be a super star.

Applying Kintsugi is a four step process that takes a fair bit of time but needed to have an express version implemented this time as this particular leaf was wilting fast!

GREEN: Green allows us space to rest and rejuvenate and offers us a refuge. Green makes us feel safe and secure and balances our emotions. Green stands for our wellbeing and good health. Green offers balance, harmony and tranquillity.

WHITE: White is pure and innocent, spiritual and honest. White brings clarity and self reflection. White makes us feel good and purifies the mind, is uplifting and encouraging allowing us to see possibilities and asking us to fulfil our potential. White gives us patience and guidance.

KINTSUGI GOLD: Gold is a generous and compassionate colour. It is inherently encouraging, optimistic and enlightening. Only wanting the best for us, gold inspires us and gives us strength to keep moving forward.

PHOTOGRAPHIC STORY:

Our lives are endlessly intertwined. Our memories drift through our veins and flow through the alcoves of our days. Our love has survived death. We are bound by eternity.

I am here, closer than before, with you always. Keep me and carry me in your heart.

This ache will slowly evolve to become a beautiful treasure in your life. Your grief will weave with threads of gratitude, growing with nostalgic sentiment into patches that will occupy the hollows of your soul. We were beautiful and now wild and free.

What’s in a name?

Deciding on a name was a tough one. I wanted this story to have a positive light but also acknowledge the impact grief has on us. The word grief alone is a sad and crushing word. I feel the word grief just one its own to see or hear it saddens most people. That alone would be enough to give the impact needed there.

I also need to have the Yin to my Yang in the name. I needed the positive to the negative and needed to complete the title with something uplifting. This process took as long as the process of working on the concept. It had to be spot on. It had to be perfect.

After a few days I came to the conclusion that Grief Synergy was the final solution offering two words that would meet you down in your grief and bring you up to a better place with the energetic word synergy. The word grief in the name is also softened by the beauty of the image.

Made of yellow and blue

Photography enthusiasts would know of colour balance and how different light has different colours or temperatures in line with the Kelvin Scale. I had set my camera’s white balance to give a crisp white background without any warm or cool influences. During photographing this story though the light outside my window shifted which gave varying final images in regards to exposure which I corrected as I shot, but also affected the colour temperature.

Green is a really interesting colour that is cool but also warm as it is made up of blue (cool) and yellow (warm)

I could see that shifts in my final images as the sun popped behind a cloud then returned again. It was so important to have the colour balance absolutely perfect as I was after a more neutral green rather than a cold or warm green. The Monsteras natural colour held the perfect shade so it was just a matter of ensuring the colour balance was correct. Any warm or cool colour shift would have a massive impact on the final image and the message being sent to the viewer through colour psychology.

My design for the Kintsugi gold took quite a few attempts on paper. It needed to have significant impact being of a decent size so it would be an element just as strong and important as the leaf. One small crack wouldn’t be enough to say what I needed it to. The Kintsugi gold would be significant in size but soft in shape with more curves than sharp edges. Softening the angles is a reminder of the fact that our loved ones didn’t intentionally leave. They would never intentionally hurt us. There shouldn’t be any anger or resentment harboured in the abrasive form of sharp edges.

Our loved ones loved us and if love alone could save them then they would live forever. While the Kintsugi gold signifies the intensity, depth and impact of the separation and grief, it needs to send a message of love and softness, and also remind us that none of the pain was intentional and sadly as much as we don’t want to hear it, their death is a part of our life.

This story is for those struggling to shift their pain caused by grief and loss.

It’s about fully feeling and processing all of those hard emotions, moving through them to a point where you can begin to put down the pain and keep only their love. Going bravely through the hard stage of loss will gift us ethereal love and peace. It reminds us to honour their existence and be grateful for the time we shared.

Grief Synergy holds a bitter sweet but beautiful story. Your heart is broken, completely and utterly broken to the point where you don’t know how you can possibly move forward. Someone you loved and cared for has died, you can’t change that and you can’t fix that. This loss is permanent and that is a really confronting concept to grasp. Time wont make things easier, you can only move forward once you feel the full force of the pain this new separation has brought.

Feel it, feel it all. You will teeter from happy memories to pain and back again until you come to a point where you decide that the hurt simply no longer serves you. You decide that in order to honour your loved one and hold on to the gratitude for all the love they gave you, it is now time to put the pain down, you don’t want to hurt anymore. You don’t want to associate your loved ones name with hurt and anger as what they gave you in life was anything but hurt and anger. We have to accept the loss, weave it into our future. It was no ones fault, there is no one to blame.

Keep the love they gave you in your heart, keep them close. When you think of them, smile, feel their warmth, remember the treasures, remember the way they made you feel, remember their gifts. Take them into your future, carry them in your heart, be proud of your scars as they mean that you took a chance to love deeply and the reason you hurt so much is because you loved so much. What an incredible gift.

Thank you so much for being here,

The Humble Hunter x

Buy your copy of Grief Synergy here or click through to see more examples of fine art photography available.