My brother died unexpectedly over the summer at the age of 52. It felt like a crumbling of my foundation. Although we had a beautiful celebration of life for him, I still found myself yearning for a ceremony that honored the sadness I felt. In the months after, I found myself creating altars in my studio. I filled old wooden crates with sentimental or personally symbolic objects… arranging them with care and reverence. I quickly realized it was helping me heal.

I began imagining what it would be like if healing boxes existed. Vessels we could put parts of ourselves into that needed mending… the pains, fears, angers and rejections of life… we would gently close it all up in the box and leave it for a time. When we’d return and open the box, those wounded parts of ourselves would be returned back to us, healed. Just imagine! 

Over the fall, I spent many a quiet, beautiful hour arranging items delicately into boxes - honoring my brother, my own sadness, and other wounds in my past. The handful of boxes shown here are photographic representations of temporary boxes that are no longer… adding to the idea of how fleeting all of life is. I intent for this to be a continuing series in which I will be adding to throughout 2023.