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“How do you keep creating, despite what you lost?” Whether she noted the crack in my voice, she didn’t let on. The weaver only said, her sad, sorrowful gaze meeting mine, “I have to.” The simple words hit me like a blow. The weaver went on, “I have to create, or it was all for nothing.”
In Chapter 15, Feyre goes shopping for gifts for the Winter Solstice. In the shop of a weaver named Aranea, she encounters a startling tapestry, made of a deep black cloth embroidered with shining silver thread. The tapestry, Feyre learns, reflects Aranea’s deep feelings of grief following the death of her mate in the war with Hybern, as well as her strong hopes for the future. Feyre is amazed that Aranea has been able to produce art following such a serious loss and asks her how she finds the strength to continue in her craft. In her response, Aranea suggests that she feels that she must continue creating art. If she stops, she claims, everything will have been “for nothing” and she would fall into despair. Feyre, who believes strongly in the power of art, understands that, for Aranea, making art is both therapeutic and a duty. Because she cannot express her feelings in words, she must do so through her weaving. Throughout the novel, art serves as an important tool in the process of healing from grief and trauma.
I needed to paint. Needed to get out what I’d seen, felt in the weaver’s gallery. I wound up staying for three hours [...] I painted through the grief that lingered at the weaver’s story, painted for her loss. I painted all that rose within me, letting the past bleed onto the canvas, a blessed relief with each stroke of my brush.
In Chapter 15, Feyre meets Aranea, a weaver whose mate was killed in the attack by Hybern on Adriata. Though citizens of Velaris were not conscripted, Aranea’s mate volunteered to fight alongside other warriors of the Night Court. After hearing Aranea’s story and viewing a tapestry that she created in her grief, Feyre rushes to the abandoned studio formerly owned by an artist named Polina. There, in privacy, Feyre is able to process the rush of strong emotions that Aranea’s story has inspired in her. For Feyre, as for other characters in the novel, art serves an important therapeutic process, allowing her to work through difficult feelings that she cannot share with others. Instead of painting a particular subject, she is guided by her own feelings, painting “all that rose within [her]” and relying on instinct. Despite the feelings of “grief” that inspire the painting, she feels “relief” while she paints. The novel, then, suggests that painting, like other forms of art, allows an individual to engage with difficult experiences, memories, and feelings.
“We only told them to paint a memory. This is what she came up with.”
It was hard to look at. The two figures in it. The red paint. The figures in the sky, their vicious teeth and reaching claws [...]
“I asked her if she wanted me to keep this somewhere special. She said to throw it out.”
In Chapter 28, Feyre reopens the studio formerly owned by the artist Polina. She has spent the previous weeks carefully cleaning up and refurbishing the space, which is now well-stocked with art supplies. Rather than using the studio to display or sell her own art, however, Feyre offers art lessons to the children of Velaris, many of whom have been deeply impacted by their experiences during the attack on Velaris by Hybern. Art has played an important role in Feyre’s life, helping her to process difficult emotions that she feels she cannot express in words nor share with others. She believes strongly that others might benefit from the opportunity to create art and encourages the children to draw upon their own memories while painting. Some children produce light-hearted paintings, while others depict bloody and violent scenes that reflect the long-lasting effects of trauma. In the studio, Feyre fosters an open and accepting atmosphere in which the children of Velaris can process painful memories and experiences without judgment.
