Tag Archives: New York City



Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, M.D. and T.J. Mitchell

Judy Melinek shares how her career as a pathologist has colored her understanding of life and death

Judy Melinek’s Working Stiff is the kind of memoir that reads like a season of the TV show “CSI”. In her book, she writes how her experience as a forensic pathologist has led her to uncover murder plots, medical accidents … Continue reading

Posted in Lending Insight | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Death and the Birth of the Little Black Dress

An exhibit of mourning attire from 1815 to 1915 at the Met reveals the changing role of a bereaved woman in Victorian culture

“Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire,” a current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is more than just a tour through the epoch of Victorian funeral fashion: It is a look at the changing stature of a … Continue reading

Posted in Cultural Perspectives | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Soft, Spherical Shelter

Cries and Whispers, a healing hideaway created by an award-winning designer Jephson Robb, was inspired by his seven-month old niece’s loss of her mother to cancer

A bright sphere the color of a purple crayon is on permanent display at the New York’s Museum of Modern Art. About five feet in diameter, this sculpture titled Cries and Whispers is made of soft felt and has a … Continue reading

Posted in Soulful Expressions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Connecting to Grief Past and Present

Andrea Bayer, the curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tells the story of her loss through great works of art

If you are an artist, you may express your grief through art, but what if you are a curator of one of the most renowned museums in the country? Andrea Bayer, the curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum … Continue reading

Posted in Soulful Expressions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Kaddish” by Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg memorializes his mother's struggle with mental illness in his spiritual masterpiece

When readers discover beat poet Allen Ginsberg, they often first come across the poem “Howl“. The elegiac rhapsody was (in)famous in its time for its explicit language and an ensuing obscenity trial that, ironically, only threw Ginsberg’s work straight into national … Continue reading

Posted in Lending Insight | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One Man’s Photography of his Wife’s Battle Against Cancer

Angelo Merendino photographed his wife's fight against breast cancer with refreshing honesty and love

Often, cancer threatens to define who we are by the sheer magnitude of its presence. Ask any cancer survivor, and they’ll tell you that there wasn’t a single aspect of their life that was left unaffected by the illness. One … Continue reading

Posted in Soulful Expressions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment