All of My Love 2025
Handmade paper, acrylic paints, stamps
All of My Love is a deeply personal sculpture that marks the closing of a chapter in my grief. Measuring 4 feet by 8 feet, the piece is a handmade sheet of paper composed of pulp from my poetry books and purple and green thrifted fabric. The poetry books were also my journals and the pages were filled with my mourning. The purple and green fabric from thrifted bed sheets was used in my earlier work “In Bloom,” about growth and decay. This paper holds memory and transformation. It holds my love, my sorrow, and ultimately, my decision to let go.
The work centers around a pivotal emotional choice of continuing to hold on to grief or to release it and carry forward only the love that made the grief possible in the first place. For a long time, the pain I felt after losing my sister felt like proof that I had loved her deeply. Letting go of that pain terrified me and I feared that moving forward meant forgetting her, or worse, invalidating the depth of our bond. Grief, however, is not what keeps love alive. Love remains, even when the suffering no longer defines you.
The title, All of My Love, comes from the Led Zeppelin song, “All My Love,” written by Robert Plant after the loss of his son. That song became a touchstone for me during my own grieving process. It serves as a reminder that love can outlast pain, and that remembrance can be tender, not just sorrowful. This piece is my offering, release, and transformation. It’s no longer about the burden of grief, but about the beauty of love that remains.
The paper features 37 of my favorite poems that I resonated with during different moments in my healing process. Two of them, painted with acrylic, span the full surface of each side, while the remaining 35 were letter-stamped individually by hand. I invite the audience to engage with the work by reading the poems and choosing the one that resonates with them most. They are encouraged to cut it out and take it with them. A gesture that symbolizes shrinking the overwhelming weight of grief into something small and sacred, something they can carry, just as I carry the love for my sister with me.
