"We have grief because of love. You conveyed it beautifully. Thank you for sharing."
"Your work is beautiful and powerful. Having just lost a family member this really spoke to me."
"They convey the message even if you hadn't told us which is a high honor for a artist. And they are touching and beautiful."
"This is so touching. It feels like tattered bodies and emotions, that are still finding comfort in holding hands. It makes me want to cry and feel comforted at the same time."
"So powerful & deeply reaching."
"I’m looking at the quilts with tears in my eyes. Both for those I’ve lost recently and those long ago. Your work is stunning and heartfelt. Thank you for sharing your art."
“I think part of why your quilts resonate is because they cover so many of the complicated stages and volumes of grief. I tried for over a year to express it all through writing, and it was all lists of dualities. Your quilts voice those ideas succinctly. Of all the energies put into your quilts by those of us interacting with them, I know gratitude was prominent.”
Soft and Heavy: a quilted grief study
by Charissa Lucille
On view June 2023 at Cha Cha's Tea Lounge
My Grief is Soft and Heavy. What color and shape is your grief? This individual and collective grief will break us to then heal us together again. May these quilts on grief comfort you; may they remind you of the duality of beauty and heartbreak; may they help you remember that grief is fluid.
In their series, Soft and Heavy: a quilted grief study, multimedia artist, Charissa Lucille, represents their grief in seven art quilts on themes of isolation, overwhelm, inner turmoil, and spiritually. To both understand themselves and to connect with others, Lucille constructed the quilts during a time of active grief using a variety of quilting techniques, new and recycled materials, and brightly colored fabrics. View these art quilts through the month of June at Cha Cha's Tea Lounge.
Lucille has displayed their art quilts in Raíz Gallery, Pravus Gallery, and First Studio Gallery and has had their quilts published in UPPERCASE Magazine, Love Quilts Magazine, and Bolt Zine. This series is supported in part by Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
Special thanks to Cha Cha’s Tea Lounge, family and friends who provide continuous support, to my mother, and mother-in-law, Gaia, and Bernie, and to my partner, Jonathan. These quilts are dedicated to all those who are grieving.
