Grieve, Pause, Return...

I have been quiet here for the past two months. In August, my sister Liz passed away, and everything else fell away with her. The weeks that followed were shaped by loss and by the long, weighty preparations for her funeral. All my focus turned to honouring her life. The studio stood still, my  brushes dried up, and social media felt like another world I couldn’t reach.

Silence has its own gravity. At first it was protective, holding me in place, keeping me from shattering into a myriad of fragments. Silence can also be isolating, and I have felt both sides of it. In the quiet, whilst I'm alone at night with my thoughts, grief has made itself known, sharp at times, tender at others, and I have had to let it have its space.

Liz was more than a sister to me. She carried a strength and a light that defied the challenges of her illness. Our bond grew even deeper after I gave her my kidney because she needed a new one. A part of me went with her then, and that bond cannot be undone. Now, with her gone, I feel as though she has taken part of me with her too. It is both a loss and a strange kind of closeness, one that I am still learning how to hold.

In a few days I will travel to Ghana. The visit was not planned but has come about after Liz’s death. I will be with family, feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and join family and friends in the requiem Mass that will be held for her. I will also celebrate my matriarch aunt’s 93rd birthday with her, a reminder of resilience, continuity, and joy.

Although this journey begins in grief, it also allows me to carry forward the next stage of my Fragments of Belonging project. The work has three movements: the first, to explore echoes of belonging in Whitehaven, a harbour town shaped by trade and migration; the second, to return to Cape Coast in Ghana, to stand at the Castle where so many journeys began under the shadow of enslavement; and the third, to conclude in Antigua, where I hope to explore fragments of belonging in and around the sugar cane plantations.

This visit to Ghana places me in the middle of the work in every sense. In the middle of the grief that has reshaped me. In the middle of the questions of belonging that continue to grow sharper and more insistent. And in the middle of the project itself, where personal memory and historical memory converge.

I don’t expect to dive straight back into full work mode. I am easing in, step by step. In Ghana I hope to gather fragments of colour, of sound, of memory, not to finish anything, but simply to begin again. To find threads I can stitch into my work and into life as it now is.

Returning to the studio, to writing, to sharing here will not be about productivity or performance. It will be about rhythm, about presence, about showing up for myself and for the work in whatever way is possible. The pause has been long, but I am beginning to see that perhaps it too is part of the work, a necessary stillness before the next unfolding.

Liz was always proud of the progress I was making, proud of the way I tried to shape a voice and vision that stood apart and spoke uniquely. I shared my projects with her, and she encouraged me always to keep going, to keep carving out that space for myself and my art. As I take these next steps, I will carry that encouragement with me. It gives me hope that even through grief, new work can emerge; work that honours her pride, and continues to grow from the fragments she helped me believe in.