Suffering

2024

Oversized jacket made of found fabric, and thrown stoneware beads

Our frail human body’s and hearts undeniably know suffering: we have known moments of deep gnawing loneliness, or have touched grief that fills the pit of your stomach, or are afflicted with physical pain. This past summer my friend sent me a letter with this quote from Samuel Rutherford, a 17th century pastor and theologian, who said, “the great king keeps his finest wine in the cellar of affliction.” I mulled over this idea for months, and here it took form. The work takes time to engage, as it is difficult to read. The jacket stands both as a physical, dragging weight, as heavy clay beads form a sort of fringe, and as warm covering. The jacket is, in part, a physical working out of pain in light of how the Bible describes it, promising that suffering and hardship will be faced in this life, and that there is perpetual hope of peace in heaven. There is both the heavy weight of walking through here and now, and the gentle covering of hope. The Christian believes that though we are afflicted, we are held and protected, though we cry out in pain, sweet beauty may come from it, though we are to always be weighed down in this life, we know the gentle and lowly Christ with whom we will feast with in eternity.