Natalia’s Story: From Personal Grief to Collective Healing

When my father passed away in 2019 after a long journey with dementia, the ground beneath me shifted entirely. His absence didn’t arrive all at once — it unfolded slowly, like mist settling over familiar paths I could no longer navigate Grief came in unfamiliar shapes: not only sadness, but disorientation, inertia, a strange silence that echoed through every part of my being. It was not just a personal loss; it altered my sense of self, my place in the world, and the way I related to others. In the beginning, I didn’t know how to make sense of it. With my art studio and all materials looking back at me through the fog of grief, my art practice didn’t stall. In fact, it transformed. It took a new unfamiliar course.

I began gathering broken fragments of organic and non-organic matter. I worked instinctively, assembling objects, organic matter, and pieces of memory into new forms. Looking back, I see this wasn’t just an artistic process; it was a way to repair myself. With every mark I made, I was learning something about grief — that it doesn’t follow a map, that it rewires your brain, that it teaches through repetition and silence. I began to wonder how others were experiencing this same shift. Was their grief as shapeless, as consuming, as disorienting as mine?

From personal grief to community

That question became the seed of Letters to Forever — a creative call for people to send me letters describing their own experiences of loss. I didn’t know who would respond or what the letters might say. But I felt an urge to reach beyond the private sphere of my own grieving. I wanted to understand grief not just as an internal rupture, but as a collective thread — something we each carry differently, but together.

Over the course of four years, more than 200 letters arrived from around the world. Some were handwritten on fragile paper, others typed in digital quiet. Each one offered a glimpse into someone’s attempt to live with loss — stories filled with longing, confusion, love, and sometimes deep regret. Reading them, I felt a profound shift. The private became public. My own grief, once solitary, found reflection in these shared testimonies.

The value of continuing bonds

At the heart of Letters to Forever is the idea of continuing bonds — the understanding that those we’ve lost do not disappear from our lives, but remain with us in new and evolving ways. This concept has shaped not only how I approached the letters I received, but also how I continue to stay connected to my father since his passing.

Creating this project became, for me, an act of continuing our relationship. My father’s presence — his quiet strength, his love for nature, his stillness — is woven into every part of this work. In the way I choose my materials, in the slowness of my process, in the instinctive marks I make — he is there. Not gone, but transformed. This body of work is not only a response to others’ grief, but also a conversation with him, carried out through art.

The letters I received reminded me how many ways people keep their own bonds alive: by cooking a beloved family recipe, planting a garden with their mother’s favourite flowers, listening to a song shared with a partner, continuing a cause that mattered deeply to a sibling. These are not grand gestures — they are quiet acts of remembrance and connection, rooted in care and meaning.

You don’t need to be an artist to nurture a continuing bond. You can write a note in a journal each year on a loved one’s birthday, take a walk where you used to go together, wear something of theirs when you need strength, or simply speak their name aloud. You can invent your own rituals — creative, spiritual, practical — that reflect your personality and theirs. You can carry on a value they lived by: kindness, curiosity, generosity, courage.

Partnering with Cruse

Cruse’s involvement has not only lent credibility and visibility to Letters to Forever, but has also ensured that it remains rooted in care, safety, and professional insight. They provide tailored training for our workshop facilitators, ensuring that the sessions are led with sensitivity and awareness. They are also contributing their insight and support to the book that will accompany the exhibition — a publication that brings together all 200 letters alongside a selection of the drawings — offering another space for reflection, storytelling, and shared healing. Collaborating with an organisation like Cruse means that this project doesn’t just explore grief artistically — it supports it meaningfully. It connects creativity with compassionate care.

The project also extends into the community, with workshops offering space for storytelling, movement, mindful making, and quiet reflection. These are led by grief and art practitioners and focus particularly on companions of people living with dementia — a group whose grief often arrives early and invisibly — and the Ukrainian diaspora navigating complex, ongoing losses. These sessions are gentle invitations to explore grief through creativity, to give shape to the unspoken, and to honour what remains.

The power of creativity to explore your grief and carry it through.

What I’ve learned through Letters to Forever is that creativity offers a language for grief when words fall short. Art has the power to hold what feels too complex, too heavy, or too quiet to express directly. It can carry sorrow alongside beauty, memory alongside transformation. Creative expression doesn’t take grief away — but it gives it form, gives it voice, and allows it to be shared. This project is a testament to that power: to the ways art can connect us to others, to ourselves, and to those we continue to love across time. It reminds us that grief is not a detour from life, but a deeply human experience that creativity can help us navigate — gently, slowly, and with care. And perhaps most importantly, it shows us that we don’t need to be whole to create something meaningful, that it is okay to be broken and lost.

Simple Creative Prompt: “Grief as Weather”

Grief changes all the time — sometimes it’s heavy like rain, sometimes it passes quickly like wind, sometimes it settles like fog. You don’t need to describe it perfectly. You just need to notice it.

Try this:

1. On a blank piece of paper, write:
   “Today, my grief feels like…”
   Then complete the sentence with a type of weather. For example:
   Today, my grief feels like a cold morning fog.
   Today, my grief feels like a thunderstorm that won’t break.
   Today, my grief feels like dry wind through an empty field.
2. Underneath, draw a small sketch that represents that weather. Don’t worry about how it looks — just let your hand move.
3. If you want, add a word or phrase next to the drawing — something the weather is teaching you today.

You don’t need to show this to anyone. You don’t need to do it every day. But even a few quiet minutes like this can help you notice your grief gently, without needing to explain or fix it.

Schedule of events:

• 7th August – Exhibition launch.
• 13th August – Artist Talk.
• 16th-26th August – five community workshops exploring loss and healing. View and Book Letters to Forever — NATALIA MILLMAN
• 28th August: Film Screening and Performance.

Exhibition opening times:

Mon – Sat 10 – 5PM

Sunday – Closed

St Peter’s Church, St Peter’s Street, St Albans, AL1 3HG

For interviews contact:

www.nataliamillmanart.com

info@nataliamillmanart.com