Art for the Grieving Heart - May 2023

Each of our Art for the Grieving Heart events begins with the group creating a craft piece with its roots in grief. Though the project is the same for all guests, each person gets to personalize theirs to their own liking and creativity. This month’s craft was no exception: customized candle tins. 

Our craft facilitator, Alexandra, who in addition to being a funeral director and embalmer with Park Memorial uses crafting as an outlet for her own grief, created the following lead-in to our craft project: 

“Today’s theme is ‘feel the warmth’. Often candles come up when we speak about grief because they are wonderfully symbolic. Today I want to talk about feeling the warmth that comes from a flame. This is something that we can’t see but we can feel. I bring this up in relation to grief because we can feel the warmth of those supporting us, and the warmth of the memories our loved ones have left us. Even though we can’t see them or touch them we can feel them - much like the warmth of a candle. I know in my home sometimes I burn candles just because I want to enjoy them. Likewise, sometimes our memories can be nice just because. But another reason I burn candles is to cover up a funky smell that is hanging around. Likewise, joyful moments with our loved ones can be called to mind to help us get through a funky feeling that we have going on internally. Today each of you will be making two candles: one to keep so you can feel the warmth and one to give to share that warmth. I encourage you to combine the warm moments with your loved one with the physical warmth of the candle so this may always be something that allows you to feel the warmth. 

The samples I have today are comprised of two for myself and two to share. For my candles I opted to make warm hearts which smells like cinnamon hearts and is wrapped in blue floral. This captures two distinct memories I have of my Baba. My second personal candle is in memory of my Mama. My mom believed that any problem could be solved over a bowl of ice cream. So to keep that reminder close I made “There is always room for ice-cream” a vanilla-citrus candle decorated with brightly coloured sprinkles. 

To share with others I decided to share two messages. One is this cheeky corset candle called beautiful beneath to serve as a reminder that sometimes when we feel like we’re cracking apart, what shines through is often beautiful to those on the outside. My second is “Sad Dino” which reminds the recipient that bad days are ok and shows that big strong, scary Dinos cry too. 

As you make your candles I encourage you to embrace whatever inspiration comes your way.” 

Guests were able to choose their decorations for their candle tins, their wax colour, and the scents placed in their candle. Guests shared the memories of their loved ones that led them to choose the scents and decorations that they chose as grief specialist Lori-Ann Huot led our facilitated, informal grief discussion. 

Our final photo of all of the candles crafted that evening shows not only the diversity of choices made by our guests, but also spoke to the diversity of the grief experience for each of us.

We are gathering together again on Tuesday, June 13th, and warmly welcome you to consider joining us… we will take a summer hiatus for June and July and return once again in September. 

To register, click here to visit our coming events page (please save that page on your favourites so you can access our updated list of grief support events). You can also click here to subscribe to our newsletter.