A year ago today, my good friend Jill unexpectedly passed on. (You can read my eulogy to her on this blog by clicking here). Maybe we’ve watched too much Victorian era costume drama, or read too much Jane Austin, but I am reminded of how they would wear black for a year of official mourning. I’m not sure of their rules of etiquette and whether or not it applied to friends as well as family, but this still seems like a benchmark worth noting. However, as you know, I have remained as colorful as usual, while both soberly and joyfully going forward with all she continues to mean to me.

I wanted to share today photos of an Aldrich Contemporary Museum collaborative my friend’s husband engaged in, in her memory. It was a “masking tape art” project, where volunteers offered their homes, schools or businesses for a temporary installation. (Click here to see photos of all 22 locations… this is Draw On location #21) In his foyer, an outline representing Jill is depicted reaching up to a tree with a horse behind her as light comes from above. The tape art was only up for a few days, then balled up on display in the museum next to our church. The fleeting metaphors in this are poignant, while pointing emphatically to the immortality of the spiritual essence…