DARK COAST: PROCESSING GRIEF THROUGH ART

It was pitch black dark. Sunrise was still two hours away and all around us was rain and nerves and anticipation. Our boat shot like a skipping stone across violent waves toward the lava-drenched island — shuddering against the pounding rhythm of our excursion.

In some ways, it felt as if the ocean was full of unearthly soldiers warring against our passage. Beneath the oily, black water, bioluminescence glowed a brilliant blue in our wake, adding to the feeling that we were crossing into another world.

This was my second time braving the tumultuous journey to Hawaii’s erupting Kilauea volcano. The first was before...

Before my heart and joy had been shattered like the black rocky remnants of a once-whole peak. Looking at the scene around me — red-hot lava streams pouring into the hissing, steaming waters for as far as the eye could see — it felt apocalyptic. It felt like looking into a mirror.

I was glad I had come.

Sometimes art calls you to face things in yourself that you’d rather not touch. Vulnerability in any sphere can be uncomfortable, discouraging and painful — but it can also lead to unimaginable freedom and fulfillment. Creativity reaches its purest form when we allow our deepest feelings and truths to be acknowledged and explored.

I’ve found that whenever I feel “blocked”, paying attention to what I am Resisting (as opposed to what I want) helps me to unlock a clear path forward.

I resisted sharing this story. The creation of my “Dark Coast” portfolio was a deeply painful and personal process — not one I have talked much about. But as I was preparing to write this, it became clear that my Resistance was actually a signal to revisit the wounds and lessons of that time, and to share them.

Her name was Melissa, but many of us called her Moosie. She was my wife’s sister and our best friend. Before she died, her life was interwoven with ours and we spent time together daily, sharing life and making memories and dreaming of a long and adventurous future together.

If Moosie were still alive, I’m sure you would have read something of hers by now. She was an incredibly talented writer whose joyful zest for life brought magic to the page.

“Dark Coast” was actually the title of a poem she wrote to accompany a portfolio of images I made in La Jolla, California many years earlier. I initially thought I would reshoot a new and updated series of images working backwards from that poem to honor her after her passing.

But, I found that her original poem was lighter and more full of hope than I was capable of conveying in my grief. Still, the words “Dark Coast” — and the connection to her — kept echoing in my mind, and pushed me to find some space for expression and understanding.

It wasn’t until I was smashing through the waves toward Kilauea and recognizing my own pain and anger in the molten scene that I realized how rough a journey lay ahead.

There are many elements to a strong photo: composition, lighting, exposure, atmosphere. But the most important element, by far, is mood. Photographing through a lens of emotion adds depth to an image. It’s what a viewer connects with. Exploring the depths of my grief for “Dark Coast”, I found that dozens of emotions act in grief’s name.

A wide array of topically disconnected images were able to find commonality for this portfolio on an emotional level. Somehow this brought me comfort.

Making the images and creating the portfolio gave my grief some structure, like scaffolding to keep me from crumbling. From this more supported place, I could look at grief in a different way. It was less dark, less ego-based — which allowed life and spirit to shine through.

It became clear that “Dark Coast” was being built around the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

There were times a shift in the images helped shift my emotions. Other times, I felt a shift in my emotions that was reflected in the images. Either way it flowed, working through the images allowed me to maintain a greater consciousness, which shed much-needed light on the darkest period of my life.

This portfolio gave me a reason to keep moving. As ultimately as the steaming lava expressed grief’s rage, sculptural ice monuments on the shores of Iceland spoke to me of grief’s paralyzing numbness and depression.

Iceland had been a location I had wanted to visit for many years, but it had always seemed too far or too expensive or too something to actually visit.

After Moosie died, my wife and I decided life was too unpredictable to put dreams on the back burner. So, we invited her mom to join us on a photography trip around Iceland’s Ring Road. We wore our moose hats and left moose stickers in various spots along the way. At night we’d recount favorite memories of Moosie and mourn that she wasn’t there with us — at least not in the flesh.

Sharing my grief with others was an important step towards articulating it. I found that my photography grew more focused on its theme the more I spoke about Moosie with my family.

Writing had never come easy for me, but Moosie seemed to guide my pen in Iceland. I wrote a piece called “Return to Source” based on my favorite image from that trip and it flowed from me like breath.

The image, Sculpted, showcases ancient glacial ice that finally makes it out to sea, where it is then thrashed around in the rough surf and washed ashore for its final expression in beautiful form.

The location is nicknamed Diamond Beach. Every day is different — some days there are a thousand little pieces of clear ice, and the next day there are 50 chunks of car-size blue ice. It’s magical.

And it’s a lot like grief itself: Varied. Unpredictable. Sharp and cold.

Yet it moves.

Giant shards melt into cool waves. Perhaps they’ll be back tomorrow, but they will appear different — and they will never last forever.

Around the 18 month mark of working through “Dark Coast”, I could sense that an ending was needed. An ending to the portfolio, to my grief, to its heavy weight — it could not go on forever.

I set a goal and moved towards acceptance.

The final images of the portfolio are very different than the apocalyptical beginning. A patch of blue sky and a small rainbow show the tedious hope I felt on the horizon of my grief.

I was not past my pain, but I’d found a peace I couldn’t have imagined at the start.

Over the years I have learned that making the work personal and expressive is what gives it power — both the power to resonate more clearly with the viewer and to evoke positive change within one’s self.

Photographs are interpretations that viewers will naturally see in their own way. If I had never shared this story of personal loss, no one would suspect that this portfolio represented these things. That is okay. It’s better that way.

These images don’t even necessarily represent those feelings to me when I look at them now. But, it was those feelings and emotions that sparked this body of work into existence. What’s most important is that the images carry life and spirit. That they have depth and mood. That they resonate with the viewer in a deeper, more emotional way.

I believe these images do, and I suspect it is because of the potent place they were born from.

There are many ways to approach creating a series of feeling-based works. You can make a collection of images around a location you resonate with, or a single subject that you revisit many times, or you can pursue the aesthetic of a feeling that you want to manifest into your life.

But, perhaps the most powerful way to inject life and spirit into your work is to look internally, and work with the emotional state that is present within you. It is not always grief — it could be anxiety or joy or frustration or excitement.

When the inner state is at its loudest, seize it. Work with it. Allow your life to spill into your craft. Embrace the gift.

Vulnerability is hard, but it is always worth it in the end.

 In LOVING MEMORY OF MOOSIE

Melissa Egbert

1982 - 2016