Jennie Beth Banks

    “The Colors of Grief Part II” 

Assemblage 

These test tubes were filled with paint for the Art Exhibit a year ago. Last year, in my write-up, I said “Grief affects everyone differently. We are all individuals having our own experience. Different amounts on different dates. Different emotions at different times. Over time, some grief may evaporate. Over time, some grief may fester and get musty. The nature of everything in life is that everything changes and morphs and transforms. It may never go away all together, but perhaps we can still work with our grief and use it and transform it into a thousand colors. The one thing that is certain is that you are not alone, because everyone grieves.”

A year later, just like splashes of paint on something, the grief remains; some evaporated and dissolved; some stuck on the insides, forever. 

And yet they are still vibrant and colorful and will also be colorful forever. 

 Artist Bio

Originally from Sheffield in the north of the UK, Jennie currently lives in Olympia, WA, with her two beloved rescue dogs, Mun'i and Xena. She is the Creative Director and Founder of Death Dancer and likes to refer to herself as a Soul Doula, helping and supporting people with their end of life experiences and reflections. 

Death Dancer was born not long after she experienced carbon monoxide and gas poisoning, along with B6 Toxicity, in 2021. She thought she was dying several times, which led her to reflect deeply on her own mortality and the inevitability of death. Two years into her recovery, she started working on a documentary idea and began interviewing Death Professionals to help her process her own death anxiety.  Inspired by this reflective process, she then went on to create conceptual mixed media art pieces related to Death & Dying, Loss, and Living, which led to the curation of an art exhibit for the Fall Olympia Arts Walk in October 2024. 

Her art practice has developed ever since and more and more ideas keep flowing to help us open up the conversation around death and dying and grief.