'Clothesline' art installation at LCCC seeks to aid grief

ELYRIA — For the second day, a special art installation about grief, loss and remembrance can be found at Lorain County Community College on Abbe Road North today. "Lorain County Clothesline: Witness V" by the art collective and performance artist collaborative RedHand, "is an artistically presented memorial and public gathering honoring deceased members of Lorain County and surrounding areas who have passed away within the last five years," according to its organizers. The final day of the installation is from noon to 5 p.m. today on the front of LCCC's Elyria campus on Abbe Road North. RedHand is made up of core members and Ohio artist-art educators William Barron, Ed Hallahan and Dennis Ryan. Fighting Saturday afternoon's wind that whipped the cloth displays about, Ryan explained that the nylon silk pieces of cloth on the installation each featured the image of someone who died. He, Barron and Hallahan said the idea for the project came from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, it was difficult for people to grieve in numbers. Funerals couldn't be held for public health and safety reasons, nursing homes and hospitals couldn't let family members or visitors in to visit the sick and dying, and some people died without loved ones present. Because people couldn't grieve communally, members of RedHand said, the collective decided to do a piece that helped "facilitate" the grieving process. Hallahan said there was a lot to think and grieve on when the pandemic hit, both personal loss and the loss of other things such as the environment. It's a memorial to some but also a chance for a "grief ritual," he said, a way to make it all "a little more beautiful, a little more special." Using black and white supplied images of people who died, Ryan said he borrowed Lorain High School's heat press and created 150 high-quality, tactile images on nylon silk. All of those images on cloth were then hung on a clothesline between wooden posts sunk into the ground at the front of LCCC's campus. This was done in in three sets, one per day, though Friday's installation was postponed due to rain. Grief "shuts down your mind," Ryan said. He and his fellow artists wanted to give people a venue to deal with it, he said. RedHand "thought it was a good way to honor some folks," Barron said, to facilitate grieving and give closure where possible. Hallahan said people who stopped by Saturday seemed to have been thankful and appreciative of the piece. Ryan said RedHand started in the late 1970s and early 1980s as an art collective that aimed to "not compromise toward mediocrity." He said the collective has designed at least 30 public art installations over the years. Other pieces over the years have included "Blue Collar Funeral," which dealt with the closure of the steel mills in Youngstown, Ryan said. Art "gives people emotions and makes them feel," he said. Weather permitting, the installation will be up again from noon to 5 p.m. today along College Drive at LCCC. Family members of those who are on the memorial may take home their loved ones' banners after the event. There is also a chance to write down memories. Barron said the memories won't be read by anyone else, but simply collected and then burned at the end of the installation. The ashes will then be buried on-site, he said. The banners will be available for family and friends of those pictured to take home after the event. For more information on the project, and a full list of names of those portrayed, visit www.lorainccc.edu/clothesline. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.