<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><item href="/issues/2019-summer/necessity-beauty.html" dsn="news"><item_date>06/28/2019 12:00:00 AM</item_date><category_header/><title>The Necessity of Beauty</title><subheader/><description>UNT alumna Rachel Cox's series on grief featured in Time magazine.</description><author/><photographer> </photographer><image> <img src="/sites/default/files/rachel_cox_-_untitled_arrangement_yellow_roses.jpg" width="3838" height="3739" alt=""/></image><taxonomy-story-type>Culture</taxonomy-story-type><taxonomy-cultural-story-category>Visual Arts</taxonomy-cultural-story-category><taxonomy-news-sections/><taxonomy-college-department>College of Visual Arts and Design, Department of Studio Art</taxonomy-college-department><taxonomy-tags>Visual Arts and Design</taxonomy-tags><type>story</type><categories/><relationships/><main-content>
    
    
  
    
      
      
        Rachel Cox      
    
    As photographer Rachel Cox ('06) helped with funeral arrangements for several family members, she noticed a common thread.
Many of the decisions involved the ways the lighting, furniture and flowers looked.
Cox, who is an assistant professor of photography at the University of Iowa, began to shoot a series on the necessity of beauty while processing grief. One of those photos of a bouquet encased in acrylic cubes was used to illustrate a Time magazine article, "How a Common Death Ritual Made It Harder to Mourn the Loss of My Mother," by Sallie Tisdale.
"In my experience, having a very beautiful, tangible object to focus your grief on provides welcomed comfort," Cox says.  

    
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