Today we’d like to introduce you to Kaitlyn Pietras
Kaitlyn, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
When I take a moment to reflect on where I started and the path that led me to where I am today, the major through lines are death, art, and spirituality.
Three major deaths happened in my family that caused me to form a relationship with death and dying at a very young age, but it was after my Nana’s death in 2020 that I felt a call to deathwork and grief tending.
I am a visual artist with a BA in Architecture from Clemson University and an MFA from UCLA TFT in Design for Entertainment. I design projections for live performances, and since taking Death Doula training with Jill Schock of Death Doula LA, I have been exploring new ways to merge death, art and spirituality.
My fascination with the occult led me to explore witchcraft as a teenager, a practice I have now circled back to as an adult after converting to Judaism. It’s fascinating to look back and realize that so much of what I was drawn to as a kid are still the things that light me up inside.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The death of my grandmother forced me to zoom out and reckon with my own mortality as an adult, mother, and wife. I studied grief and deathwork, came out as queer, and left my marriage. I am very grateful for the friends and chosen family who showed up, and continue to show up, for me as I navigate my identity and new path.
Coming out in your mid 30s is a scary thing and there is a great deal of grief involved. While I missed out on that precious and silly time in my teens to figure out my sexuality in a young and authentic way, I am grateful to have a safe space to explore the untended parts of myself within my current relationship. It’s been incredibly healing for me.
It’s also scary just writing this, knowing it will be on the internet for an undetermined amount of time. But when I was in the darkness of confronting my sexuality I sought out other people’s late in life coming out stories and I was so grateful for their bravery and vulnerability. Community is so important and the more of us that are able to share the beauty and pain in realizing our own queerness, the less alone I hope others will feel.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a visual artist and deathworker specializing in grief tending, especially within the queer community.
My background in art and storytelling perfectly fuses with grief tending in my practice. A person needs to feel safe in order to process and alchemize their grief, and my hope for my clients is that I can serve them by creating these spaces in a physical but also energetic and spiritual way.
One of my offerings is Swedish Death Cleaning, which is a practice of organizing your home and simplifying your life in order to reduce the burden on loved ones after you pass away. While this is a practical offering, there is a great deal of grief tending in this process as this involves confronting your mortality.
Another one of my offerings is “grief witnessing”. It is different from talk therapy in that I do not provide any guidance or advice, but hold space and give my clients permission to speak what is on their minds without judgment. Grief is not exclusive to death either. I have clients who come to me during transitional moments like birth, a child moving out or even major surgery.
I hold Queer Grief Circles monthly at Studio DDLA, a death and mortality focused art gallery and community space in Chinatown. A beautiful intimate community has formed around this meetup. I curate the gallery shows at Studio DDLA as well, combining my passion for art, deathwork and spirituality. MELT, my most recent show, is a collection of works inspired by the necessary, sometimes terrifying, process of losing oneself in order to transform. It is personal to my own journey of reckoning with my queerness, but feels universally relatable to any type of rebirth. I have some pieces I am currently working on within my own art practice and will be sharing more of that soon!
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Since the death of my Nana, when faced with a major decision I have always asked myself this question: “On my deathbed, what choice will I wish I had made?”. Then the decision is less about the idea of “risk” and more about what is driving my soul. A lot of people fear death but in my experience embracing my mortality has given me the gift of living my life in a more authentic and joyful way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thejewitchdoula.com
- Instagram: @thejewitchdoula
Image Credits
Personal photo by Tybee Diskin. All other photos by me.
