A Season of Anguish & Grief is an ongoing exploration of moving through these tumultuous emotions.

Anguish, when we first meet, goes for our bones. There is no hesitation. It's relentless, it drops us to our knees, leaving us limp, sliding down the wall we try so hard to lean on. There are no words, just an explosion. Then silence. Here we meet the void. There is only before and after now. We remain ever changed. Grief is what we live in, processing the agony that Anguish left us with. Repeatedly we will slide down the brick wall, repeatedly we will be drained of all our marrow. There is no cure, there is no haven, there is only Time. and this Time that we need, cannot be measured with clocks or calendars. It will stand still with us, till it flings us into the future where we look up between the stillness and say 'it's been a month now, six months now,...a year', and yet, sprinkled in there are moments where we forget. then are thrust again into the reality of where we are standing.

In the fall of October 2021 I lost my father to covid. I, like so many others, were left stunned, standing in the wake of a viral pandemic. I was fortunate to be by his side. How everything aligned to make that happen I do not know. What I do know was that after, came the swiftness of cremation, and the slowness and isolation of the quarantine. My body remembers the sound of the air purifiers, the roaring so loud that I cannot hear anything anyone is saying through layers of PPE, yet the beeping of the machines cut through. This series is an ongoing compilation of pieces created after my father's passing. During this time period I also suddenly lost an Uncle, and a friend, and almost one year to the day of my Father's passing, I lost my Aunt. As I move through this season creating helps me process that which I cannot not keep inside me. I do not know when or where this series will end as I have never stood in this place before.

Often, I find with these pieces, that each of them has their own process and their own timeline. Sometimes I see what I am meant to right away, other times it can take years of knowing it's there, yet not being ready for it to emerge. - Kristina L Jager