Poppy
Poppy is an illustrator specialising in paper cutting based in Brighton.
After her dad died in 2016, she set up @thegriefcase - an Instagram community and meet-ups for bereaved people.
“When people get it wrong in portraiture - when it doesn’t look like them - it’s because they’re trying to make it look like a person.
The face will come at the end if you break it down into simple forms.
When I was at the Drawing School, they’d say, “Look at the space between the arm and the body. Look at the negative space.”
It’s a puzzle of light and dark.
My dad was a punk poet. He lived this life of getting kicked out of here, knocking on the window there…just this mad, creative chaos.
As a child, I didn’t have boundaries or bedtimes.
When I was a teenager, he got me backstage passes for The Libertines. He introduced me to John Cooper Clarke.
I thought he was cool. He thought he was cool.
He made me help him break him out of the hospice. I was like Saffy in Ab Fab, apologising to everyone.
“After Dad died, I buried myself in paper cutting.
It was safe and I could control it.”
After Dad died, I buried myself in paper cutting. It was safe and I could control it.
But I felt like my work was shit. I left my agency. I didn’t know who I was any more.
It’s complicated to lose an addict parent. I couldn’t work out how relief and sadness sat next to each other.
I asked five people who I knew had lost someone to come over to mine and bring a poem to share. People were crying as I opened the door.
That was the first Griefcase meet-up. Now we have a venue, free tickets on Eventbrite.
There’s a feeling of ritual about them. There’s always flowers, always candles. There’s a memory corner with photos and objects. At the end, I play a song and we all close our eyes.
I always have tissues. I’ve learned that.
You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. But we set parameters, and we stick to them.
We go one at a time. We don’t interrupt each other, we don’t give advice. We don’t fill the silence.
No one tries to ‘fix’ you.
When Dad was dying, I remember drawing him. I drew his face.
When I found it hard to look, I focused on lines and shapes and shadows. Telling myself, ‘This is not a person; this is light and dark. This is shape.’
I think Instagram’s a great way to change the conversation about grief.
People submit their words to the Griefcase account. They don’t have to be perfect. Just, ‘What have you survived? What have you lost?’
Visually, I didn’t want it to look like a hospice leaflet. No photographs of falling leaves or anything.
It’s so shareable. You might not have the words, but you can forward something on to someone. “This is how I feel.”
The isolation is broken by hearing someone else has gone through what you’ve gone through.
Dad was always writing. If he had a heartache, he was writing about it. Whatever grievances he had, he was writing about them.
This is my torch for dad. Maybe he couldn’t say everything in his lifetime.
But he taught me that if you have a feeling inside you, you can get it down on paper. It doesn’t have to be neat or tied up with a bow.
It’s a thank you to him. It’s helpful legacy alongside all of the chaos.”
You can follow The Griefcase on Instagram.
Find out more about Poppy’s work at Poppy’s Papercuts.
Written by Laura McDonagh