ABOUT








THE SHAPE OF GRIEF(Publication)
“While empathy may come more naturally when discussing human loss, there are other types of loss that are not acknowledged or given a similar amount of attention by society, this includes losing a pet” (Crossley, 2022).

When I lost my family dog, I wondered why there was no meaningful representation of pet grief, and I quickly realized that it was partly because pet grief often wasn’t validated in society. Through this research I created a publication that explores the feelings of losing a dog through physical creative processes and materials.

The publication goes through three sections:
Redacted, Concealed and Indistinct, each representing an element of pet grief.

Crossley, M. (2022) Overcoming the social stigma of losing a pet: Considerations for counseling professional.










‘Redacted’, using laser cutting to cut the silhouette of a dog out of images, it represents one of the first feelings that occur after losing a pet which is the emptiness of the home. I applied this process to images of my own dog as a small homage to the inspiration for this publication.






‘Concealed’ implies the memories that come to mind in pieces as time goes on using small cut-outs in French folds which reveal parts of quotes that were sourced through a survey, I conducted to people who had lost a dog.








Using black on black printing, ‘Indistinct’ aims to represent the presence that is often felt after a loss using a series of images by Sarah Ernhart from a series called ‘Joy Session’ where she photographed terminally ill dogs.