YOUR INVITATION. Rhonda Willers, an Elk Mound based artisan, explores the external manifestation of grief, love, gratitude, and other emotions in her latest installation, "Practices in Transformation: grief, gratitude, love, and time," within the Pablo Center in downtown Eau Claire.

What can a facial tissue reveal about grief? Rhonda Willers, a multidisciplinary artist based in Elk Mound, will explore themes of transformation, love and time through this medium and more in her latest art installation.

“In this exhibit, time breathes,” Rhonda said. “This is a space for pause, for feeling the weight and lightness of time, for reflecting on the unseen ways we move through the world — and how the world moves through us.”

From Aug. 4-Oct. 12, eight individual pieces crafted by Rhonda will be on display at the Pablo Center at the Confluence (128 Graham Ave., Eau Claire) in a collection titled “Practices in Transformation: grief, gratitude, love, and time.”

Each piece represents the “quiet truths” found in our everyday existence, along with the passageways one may enter and exit from while experiencing transformative grief and change.

Rhonda shared her personal experiences with acute grief throughout her lifetime, where the physical manifestation of loss became all consuming. It was in these moments where tissues offered by loved ones — as an act of comfort — could not mend the profound wounds of such periods of change.

As a graduate student from 2004-2007, Rhonda was reminded of these gifts from loved ones — along with life’s many other familiar objects — and sought to create a quilt out of ironed pressed tissues and gold safety pins.

Fast forward to 2019, Rhonda continued to use these “gifts” to create the “Passages of Transformation” piece that would eventually be brought back to her 2025 exhibit at the Pablo Center.

“In this exhibit, time breathes. This is a space for pause, for feeling the weight and lightness of time.”

RHONDA WILLERS

MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST BEHIND "PRACTICES IN TRANSFORMATION"

With each new wave of love and loss, she continued to create mixed media artwork, and eventually came to a belief that grief can take shape in many forms. “Practices in Transformation” aims to provide viewers with tangible representations of this emotion, allowing them to externalize the feeling from within themselves.

“It is really important to understand, grief is not just about a person dying,” Rhonda said. “Grief is about a life that you thought was going to be and isn’t. Grief (can be) about an opportunity that you did not have, that you wanted.

"Safe Passages," pictured above, welcomes viewers into Willers' exhibit at the Pablo Center. (Photo by Evelyn Nelson)

As viewers enter the James W. Hansen Gallery, they are welcomed to “Safe Passages,” the first piece in the installation. Rhonda, along with the support of friends and family, created curtain-like fixtures made with iron pressed tissues (Puffs Ultra Soft to be exact) along with gold safety pins on the perimeter of the entryway.

With this piece — and others throughout the gallery — Rhonda invites the guest to shift their perspectives; wander through the space with curiosity and openness.

Along the back wall of the installation, rings of collective pinch pots — 452 in total –with gold thread, eye hooks, and wire adorn the surface in the piece “Infinite Gratitude: Eleven Minutes of Gratitude.”

Rhonda's meditative practice of making pinch pots — which began in 2021 and continues through today — serves as a chronicle of the profound gratitude and love she has for those people and experiences in her life.

By molding each individual pot, the practice offers a "pouring into someone, whether they know it or not,” Rhonda shared.

The centerpiece of this exhibition, encased in a yellow-amber resin, lies one singular tissue surrounded by embroidered and sewn tissues at the base. This enclosed relic, “The Colors of Grief: (Un)locked in Amber Waiting,” is also a collaborative art piece for anyone who wishes to participate.

“A lot of times (grief is) locked away in our being, so I wanted that (emotion) to be the reliquary on top,” Rhonda said. “I (also) wanted to give people something to take (grief) out of your body, and put it outside of yourself too.”

How is this invitation brought to life? Rhonda welcomes viewers to both mentally offer your own expression of grief to the collection, or use physical materials of your own (or those provided in the gallery) to stitch “lines of grief.”

Instructions to create your stitches of grief:

1. Use facial tissues (any brand or size, aka Kleenex, Puffs, etc)
2. Use thread color(s) that represent the color of your grief.
   
   1. You can use a sewing machine, embroidery or other thread.
3. Sew tissues together to form a line or another shape. Sew as many as you want to sew together
4. Stitching: you can stitch by hand or use a sewing machine. Any stitch pattern is welcomed including words or images.
5. OPTIONAL: include a brief note with your name and email so that I might contact you as the piece progresses.
6. Mail your completed lines of grief to me — or drop off in-person at the Pablo Center — any time through October 3, 2025 for inclusion in this exhibition.
   1. Rhonda Willers
      c/o Willers Art Studio
      PO Box 9
      Elk Mound, WI 54739

In-person viewers can offer their piece to the collection, or mail the completed lines to Rhonda directly — through Oct. 3 — to be included in the exhibition. In just one month, a gathering of sewn tissues with many darting lines, intricate weavings, or simple stitches has transformed into a beautiful, collective grief, she shared.

Tissues with many "stitches of grief" on display at the basin of "The Colors of Grief: (Un)locked in Amber Waiting" installation.

Rhonda has received stories of grief from friends, loved ones, and strangers across the country and as far away as Argentina. They have been touched by her invitation and hoped to represent their experiences with this emotion.

The exhibition showcases the strong representation of Rhonda’s friends, family, and local collaborators from western Wisconsin, along with the invaluable support of the collaborative staff at the Pablo Center, she said.

This exhibit will continue to be shaped by fragments of Rhonda's existence and gratitude for her community — whether through lighting specialists, the gentle echoes of sound crafted by Eau Claire multi-instrumentalist Shane Leonard, or thousands of tissues collaboratively woven together.

“My favorite moments are whenever somebody, or someone in my family walks through to the door for the first time,” Rhonda said. “That moment is like magic — to witness somebody experience the thing you've created.”

The exhibition will include a reception from 5pm-7pm on Friday, Sept. 26 in the James W. Hansen gallery at the Pablo Center. There, attendees will have the invitation to sew their own lines of grief on tissues, along with a brief artist talk on the collection.

"Passages of Transformation" features iron pressed tissues, gold safety pins, monofilament, gold (brass) eye hooks, by Rhonda Willers.

"Hawk Dreams" features acrylic and mixed-media on wood panels with nine painted shelves, by Rhonda Willers.

For more information on the “Practices in Transformation: grief, gratitude, love, and time,” exhibition, visit the Pablo Center website online. Rhonda Willers, a visual artist, educator, mother, and author, shares her ongoing explorations of art online at rhondawillers.com.