Facing the Blank Canvas: What the Arts Teach Us About the Grief Journey

|First things first, you don’t need to be an artist in order to experience the benefits of using art in your grief journey. Fine art - what people usually think of when they say, “I’m not an artist!” - is all about the product. Grief art, on the other hand, is all about the process of creating it. It might produce a result that’s less than aesthetically pleasing, but know what? Grief isn’t pretty, either.

If you or someone you know is experiencing intense and prolonged difficulties following a loss, reach out to a health provider such as a doctor or nurse, or a mental health practitioner such as a therapist or helpline for more support.

---

Facing the Blank Canvas:
​What the Arts Teach Us About the Grief Journey

Because grief takes us beyond words, we must go beyond words (to art!) in order to heal. So how can art help me in my grief, you ask? Read on, brave soul!

​Externalization: How the Arts Helped Me Get the Bad Stuff Out

Externalization is the process of taking what’s inside of you, and expressing it outwardly.

I’m a visual person, so when I see something powerful - whether good or bad - it sticks with me. That was the case for the memory of the night my dad passed away. I was twelve years old at the time. I can still picture getting up in the middle of the night to ask why all the lights were on. To spare you the details, I saw what no child should ever have to see. Dad had suffered a massive heart attack, which took his life instantly. The world as I knew it was gone. That memory was so strong that a decade later, I could viscerally feel all the same emotions of that night.

After years of counseling, I knew it was time to get this memory out of my head. I started painting a picture of myself lying on the couch after all the paramedics had left. As I painted, I felt all the feelings and thoughts of that night, welling up inside of me. Yes, I hurt and I cried for that little girl on the couch, but I knew I had to press on. It was no small effort.

Once it was all out, I stepped back from my painting and gasped. Something had happened in the course of those hours. I had spent so much time with that memory, thoroughly feeling it, then releasing it onto the canvas. And now, I felt freer, lighter. I was no longer the little girl on the couch.

Related: Grief & Loss - What is it & What does it look like?

---

Art helps you externalize the deep emotions and thoughts of grief. They aren’t pretty to see or feel, but you must get them out of you so that you can move on and live. 

Confinement: Placing Overwhelming Feelings In a Small, Safe Space

Back to our opening thought: Grief takes us beyond words, so we must go beyond words to heal. I don’t have statistics on this, but I believe that the majority of modern-day people have never really dealt with their grief. The prevailing problem of our grief is that it just seems so big. When you look at a problem that big, it’s hard to know how or where to start (we’ll deal with where to start in the next section).

When grief feels too big and scary, you might find yourself in the fight or flight response. There is another way, and it comes with a change in mindset. Grief is enormous. However, if we falsely assume we have to deal with it all at one time (or in X number of months), we place our emotional health on the losing side of the battle.

In reality, grief can be dealt with bit by bit, and over a long period of time.

​Back to art. Visual art is (most often) confined to the four corners of a canvas or piece of paper. Visual art works within the constraints of two dimensions and the properties of a chosen medium (such as uncontrollable watercolor or the limited greys of a pencil). It also utilizes symbolism, which compacts great meaning into small items of significance (think street signs, letters as symbols of sounds, even the language of Catholic iconography).
​

"Art is a perfect candidate to help us with our grief because it can encapsulate great meaning in a small space."

It’s so much easier to face the bigness of your grief when you know it’s exact dimensions (8.5x11” blank computer paper, a 12x20” canvas). I’m speaking metaphorically of course. Art is a perfect candidate to help us with our grief because it can encapsulate great meaning in a small space. A simple prompt to “draw how you feel” might be intimidating at first. But then, pick up a red crayon and black crayon and scribble circles on a page until it’s covered. Didn’t you just express something profound with that small, simple action?

There’s another benefit to be had here as well. The meaning you put onto your canvas is carried on - it speaks for itself. The next time someone asks, “How are you doing?” try showing them a piece of art you create. You might need to explain a bit, but chances are they’ll know exactly what you mean.
​
Art helps you deal with overwhelming feelings in a small, safe space.

​Facing the Blank Canvas: Knowing How & Where to Start

I mentioned another problem with grief in modern society: that when it comes to grieving, many find that they don’t know how or where to start.

I equivocate this problem to the same problem the artist faces when there’s a blank canvas before them. The artist thinks, “How shall I start? Where shall I start? What if things don’t turn out like I imagined them? Am I good enough to complete this work?”. If you’re not particularly artistically inclined, I’ll bet you feel even worse facing the blank canvas.

There’s a similar “blank canvas” that is presented before the you after experiencing a loss. That pretty picture you painted of your future with your loved one is suddenly wiped clean. You feel you know nothing at all about how to live moving forward. The overwhelming blankness of the lost one’s absence is simply too much to bear.

But life is lived in full color, and if you don’t start facing that newly blank canvas, the
circumstances of life will start dropping paint on it for you. You can either be a passive observer of the work, or you can be an active participant in the masterpiece of your life. While it might be good and healthy to first sit and acknowledge that blankness, at some point, you gotta pick up that brush again.

Scared? That’s completely normal. But let me share a little secret with you that has helped me in my artistic process. Cover all the blank canvas. No, not with a sheet or paper bag. Cover it with color! Cover it with one color, cover it with a messy rainbow of them all, it doesn’t matter, just cover the blank! It’s amazing how good it feels to simply start something.

​The next step in completing that painting is much easier because in your mind, you know you’re already on your way to creating something beautiful.

Um… so how do I apply this to my grief process? (Sorry, sometimes I get carried away in the metaphor.) Ask yourself: what brings color to your life? What brings happy yellow, orange excitement, blue nostalgia, purple introspection, green growth? Chances are, you’ve set aside many of these colors since your loss. It’s time to take them up again. Cover your blank canvas with new experiences, relationships new and old, new learning opportunities, rediscovered hobbies. Try one thing a week, then after a while, try one new thing a day. Soon, your canvas will be covered in vibrant hues.

You will be well on your way to creating a masterpiece that’s not what you expected, but one that’s beautiful, nonetheless.

Art helps us create something beautiful out of the “blankness” that loss leaves in our lives.

Have you ever expressed your grief through art? What kind of benefits and challenges did you experience in doing so?

Want to try using art in your grief journey? Danica has created a free mini-course where you can learn more about grief and art. There’s a beginner art project too! Try it for yourself right here: Grief Art 101 | Project Grief

---

About the Guest Author | Danica Thurber

When I was twelve years old, my dad passed away of a sudden heart attack. I struggled to understand and express my grief for many years afterward, and art was sometimes my only outlet for grief.

I graduated from Washington State University with a thesis on "Cultural Expressions of Grief Through Art", receiving high honors and being the first to combine an academic project with an art project. My thesis was published in an online journal and I have spoken at multiple conferences nationwide and led grief art workshops throughout the Northwest.

I created Projected Grief out of my own research and experiences with the arts and mental wellness. Project Grief is an online school that teaches others how to use art as a therapeutic tool in their grief process.

​To find out more, visit: www.projectgrief.org

​The links in this article may be affiliate links that I will be compensated for at no additional cost to  you. Want to start your own blog? Click here to learn how!