Well after such a rousing first adventure with #yycartmap our second sortie was disappointing to say the least. It highlights challenges with public art programs oft forgotten because the artworks themselves are not the controversy (think Blue Ring). Rather, it is access and care of the artworks, which if not maintained, leads to the loss of our memories of them and then the loss of the works themselves.
Take image 1, “Mount Pleasant Moments” by Jennifer Stead found INSIDE the (rightfully?) locked stairwell of the Mount Pleasant Fire Station #17. It is nearly invisible in the early morning as we peer through the ground floor window and past the sun’s glare. It’s really meant to be seen at night when it’s lit up.
Image 1: “Mount Pleasant Moments” by Jennifer Stead
The other work nearby, is “Alberta Foothills Morning” by Ed Drahanchuk at the Mount Pleasant Arts Centre across the street. And while it’s 1960’s aesthetic may leave some underwhelmed the faded, water and sun damaged sign leaves some of us discouraged that the artwork and its accompanying signage is not considered worthy of upkeep and maintenance.
Images 2 and 3: “Alberta Foothills Morning” by Ed Drahanchuk
Images 4,5, and 6: “Views” and “Collide” by AJA Lauden
Following the map through to Confederation Park we are rewarded for our tenacity with some truly vibrant murals in the eastern pedestrian underpass by AJA Lauden, titled ‘Views”. The closeup of the bird’s feet gripping a branch painted over the corrugated metal shell is eye-popping and heart-stopping.
Alas, our delight was quickly dispelled and replaced with disappointment and dissatisfaction with the absence of Lauden’s other work ‘Collide’ that was supposed to be in the western pedestrian overpass. We walked one end to the other, even stopping to photograph the label, proving that there was supposed to be a blue bison against a dark forested background just like depicted in the map app.
But as we walked to one end and back, we were only faced with poorly painted beige walls with some local graffiti tags. You can see in Image 6 the rollers stopped inches from the tops of the murals where visitors are teased with hints of clouds and mountains. This begs the question why? And so many other questions: Was it too damaged to be repaired; too expensive? I can keep speculating – misinformed but well-meaning city staff mistook it for graffiti? Do the artists know? To answer some of these questions a news article from December 2022 explained that while untouched by vandalism for five years the murals were now beyond repair and the work was decommissioned – painted over in beige. So now I’m left with the question – when’s the new community-led mural to replace the beige going up?
Images 7, 8, 9, 10: Kari Woo, “An Exchange of Words”
Kari Woo’s work, “An Exchange of Words” is tucked away at the Georgina Thomson Offices at the corner of Northmount and 14th St. NW. This space was formerly a library named after local writer, educator, and librarian, Georgina Thomson. There are benches for gathering around the little public library box (not actually a library) lined with books and dusty etched glass doors.
It all felt neglected and after such a disappointing public art walk about this and the other works raise questions about the YYC public art policy in regards to what maintaining and safeguarding public art means. This left me with questions, some that were answered with google searches, but I am also left mourning the loss of these works, even though some of them seem to be enduring a a slower demise than others.
This summer I am not travelling far but that doesn’t mean there are isn’t art and death to explore in #YYC! I discovered the Calgary Public Art Collection Map. YYC Public Art Collection consists of over 1300 works of art found outside, in plazas, LRT stations and the +15 downtown (https://www.calgary.ca/arts-culture/public-art/collection.html). I decided that a couple of days a week I would pick an area using the map and check out the work. So far, I can say it’s been an adventure and along the way I’m discovering local food, shops, and people, but here I’ll be focussing mostly on the art and when possible taking up connections to Birth, Living, Dying and Death.
My first stop was the far NW in Royal Oak to see Convergence by Laura Haddad and Thomas Drugan (#LauraHaddad #ThomasDrugan).
This is a phenomenal work of art that has to be revisited throughout the natural seasonal cycle. In the middle of our first heatwave this metal and glass work flickered in the morning sun. Eerie glowing lights shimmer from the glass-tipped ends and the sun refracting and playing with the light captured only on camera, not the naked eye!
The two pieces undulate against the prairie blue sky, coming together, then separating as I moved around the piece getting closer and then stepping back to take it all in. Haddad and Drugan’s installations respond to the nature of the place – playing with sun, sound, light, wind and water.
Their sister piece, Flock, 2018, found at the bottom of the hill by the parking lot of the YMCA to the side of the storm pond plays with natural elements too and while standing in the heat of the early afternoon of Summer looking back up the hill, I can only image how in the middle of the darker days of Winter the piece standing in the barren prairie hill would remind us that all good things must come to an end.
I Know! A rather dark ending to a beautiful summer outing, but I am, yet, again in awe at how art reminds us of this great big beautiful life we are all living.
This is the last in an ongoing series entitled ‘Vacationing with Death: What I did this Summer’.
You know it’s love when your LOYL agrees to come to the cemetery with you while you’re on holiday. Hepburn and I toured Sandon’s cemetery while my patient partner hung back, reading/napping in the shade. It was a lovely way to end our day at Sandon, BC considering all that we had learnt about its tragic histories. We decided to call on this overlooked place after visiting the Sandon Museum basement. And what a basement! We just had to go down those wide stairs into the blackness. It was dark, and dank, and musty, and purported to have ghosts (don’t even get me started about the rhythmic banging noise that only started when I was left alone and stopped when I went up the stairs!).
Ghost thumping aside, I was duly surprised to find an out-of-the-way exhibit of original tombstones from Sandon Cemetery and its accompanying ‘Restoration Report’ from 1996.
Sandon Museum exhibit of Sandon Cemetery tombstones. Photo Dr.Dam, 2022.
A rich historical document, The Restoration Project Report outlined some of the history of the residents of the cemetery, the evolution of it and the need for conservation. Hence the wooden tombstones in the Museum’s basement. It seems Dark Tourists were removing them from their places in the cemetery, leaving the residents without memorials: unnecessarily cruel, and selfish.
Cemeteries are a relatively new concept; relative in relation to the history of humans dying, that is. And also, nascent in terms of how we care for our dead because cemeteries are NOT graveyards or churchyards. Churchyards came first, then cemeteries. The difference being graveyards tended to be smaller areas for burials, churchyards are, as the word indicate, yards for burials near churches, and cemeteries, as we know (and love) them, began a little over 200 years ago, one of the most famous being the 1804 Cimetière de Père-Lachaise in Paris.
Laqueur (2015) notes that as far back as records go people were buried outside of the cities in the Mediterranean, the seat of western society. They were buried ‘away from the gods’ (94). Cicero (106BC – 43BC), Roman politician, lawyer and orator, traced the prohibition of burial inside city walls to 5th C BCE laws, and 3rd C BCE that explained the dead would pollute sacred spaces, i.e., temples and shrines to gods and deities and well into the 5thC CE Justinian’s code of law continued to prohibit burial inside the city spaces. It should be noted that burials at this time were not segregated. As late as the 5th C CE Jews, Christians, and Pagans were still buried in the same ground, side by side. Charlemagne – Charles the Great, King of Franks from 768CE, and unifier of Europe during the early Middle Ages, forbade the use of pagan cemeteries, and gave the Church (i.e., the Catholic Church) exclusive claims to the dead. Burial in church yards still took centuries as churches were slow to be built and many peasants and rural citizens were buried on their own properties. However, the separation of burial based on religion had taken hold. So, what is a cemetery and why visit it on a date with your LOYL?
Cemeteries in the 19th century were built on the outskirts of busy towns and cities. They were designed to resemble Elysium or Acadia, the ancient mythological landscapes inhabited by the dead and visited by shepherds. Victorian cemeteries were landscaped and designed to encourage visitors, not just those mourning their loved ones buried in them, but socialites who would promenade with potential suitors along the winding paths, or sit under the canopied trees on a pleasant spring day with family. And Sandon fits this design, in a neglected sort of manner.
Hepburn posing in Sandon Cemetery. Dr.Dam 2022, photo
Located outside of the town centre to the east side of the road one would miss it if not looking for its renovated white picket fence. Nestled in the forest, the dead rest, silently, all but neglected by a few who venture there. With the grave markers now safely stored in the Sandon Historical Society Museum, my visit highlighted the few remaining known grave sites marked by contemporary cement construction blocks. But one still has a broken wrought-iron fence about it and towards the far side away from the entrance I had to walk carefully around the grave site divots – the areas where the ground collapsed as the remains decomposed and shifted.
As I walked the grounds, under the canopy of pine trees, the cool breeze rustling the foliage, I was mindful that this space is sacred: a place set apart and immortalized. It possesses the traces of lives lived and loved, and is a physical reminder that death becomes us all.
Resources and further reading:
Laqueur, T.W. “The Work of the Dead”. The Churchyard and the Old Regime. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Stevens Curl, James. The Victorian Celebration of Death. David + Charles Publishers. 1972.
Ask a Mortician has done several videos on cemeteries and I highly recommend her interview with Dr. Kami Fletcher (of Radical Death Studies) on racial segregation of the dead in the USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4-0iAzFIcI
This is part of an ongoing series entitled ‘Vacationing with Death: What I did this Summer’.
When I set out on our Sandon ghost town day visit, I had no idea about its darker historical involvement with Canada’s internment of Japanese residents and citizens during WWII. Neither did my family members who had visited Sandon years earlier. On our way to Sandon, we stopped in New Denver, a few short kilometres way. We visited the small but impactful Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre (306 Josephine St., New Denver, BC, https://newdenver.ca/nikkei/ ). I’ve visited concentration camps in Europe and are still moved to silence today by the memories of those visits, but this visit took me out of my skin. The beauty of the gardens, the well conserved (but few remaining) buildings and the smiling faces in the photographs (so many photographs) mask the traumas and tragedies that our mid-20th C government inflicted on over 22,000 Japanese-Canadians.
Fred Brigden (871-1956), Sandon in Watercolour, 1944, watercolour. Brigden, artist from Toronto, created this as part of a series of West Kootenay views he painted. Watercolour mistakenly called “A Typical Japanese Village” by gallery in Toronto. Sam Eto is a young boy front and centre. SOURCE https://gregnesteroff.wixsite.com/kutnereader/post/sandon-in-watercolour-1944 and Sandon Museum + Historical Society volunteers (July, 2022)
Nikkei gardens, 2022, photo Dr.Dam
Nikkei Internment Camp 1942044 Shack, 2022, photo Dr. Dam
The two photographs above feature one of the immaculate gardens and a typical building that housed 2 families, with as many as 16 people in a 14×28 foot space. Toilets were a communal series of outhouses serving up to 50 people. There were as many as 200 of these ‘shacks’ in the area known as the Orchard. Official records state 1,500 men, women, and children were forcibly removed from their homes, businesses, and schools, and confined here. Older internees chose to remain in New Denver, rather than move yet again to places unknown after the interments ended. They lived in newer buildings (built in late 1950s, but not much more than the original shacks) until the 1980s.
In both New Denver, and Sandon, we learnt of the harsh realities of being forced to live in such a desolate place, with few comforts or access to proper necessities of life. Sandon, however, was different – it’s houses, many abandoned years earlier were livable, and a newspaper report in The New Canadian (Vol. V, No.57) dated June 24, 1942, mentions the arrival of the first of nearly 970 Japanese internees to Sandon. The article mentions how Sandon avoids “some of the difficulties which have arisen in other towns” because it came with its own hydro-electric generator station, and “sanitary facilities”. The paper goes onto note that the main street with storefronts were being refurbished, and to quote “as store after store and service after service is again opening up to enjoy the new life of the town”.
Historical documents such as these, combined with the photographs could lead one astray, into believing that life here was good, and the people were happy, possibly because they smile into the camera (but who doesn’t ‘smile for the camera’? That’s rhetorical). The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre displays letters, and official correspondents between Internees, their representatives, and government departments that tell a different story. One of loss, pain, fear, and indignities.
One example from the many thousands of digitalized artefacts, letters, photographs, audio recordings, films, and official documents found at https://nikkeimuseum.org/index.php
Letter from T. Nakatani, Steveston B.C., to E. Nakatani, Grand Forks, B.C.; 1942
The letter is written from Mr. Takao Nakatani to Mr. Esumatsu Nakatani. The sender is writing to his uncle, Esumatsu about the injustice of forced removal by expressing his sadness of being apart from many people, and his home and community in Steveston. He mentions his vivid image of saying ‘Good bye’ to many of his friends who already moved to Manitoba and Alberta by train. His main purpose of writing the letter is to ask his uncle to keep all the letters addressed to him since he gave Esumatsu’s address to all his friends who have left already. He is concerned of losing contact with his friends as he is also leaving his town soon. He does not want to separate from his family and if he goes to Greenwood (where the Catholic Church is) there will not be enough space for all his family. He does not know where he will move yet but will tell his uncle Esumatsu as soon as he decides: Part of the Esumatsu Nakatani Collection no. 2017.17.4.3.15
The injustices inflicted upon Japanese-Canadians is, in part, responsible for Sandon’s continuing existence. The internees’ stories are visible, if we are willing to look for and listen to them. As an art historian with an interest in thanatology, I am further intrigued by the conflicting interpretations surrounding the remains of Sandon’s deceased internees. Reports claim 14 died during the interment in Sandon. A report entitled The Sandon Cemetery Restoration Project, dated 1996 and prepared for the Sandon Historical Society + BC Heritage Trust, goes into great detailed speculation about an area outside of the northern boundary being used for Japanese internee burials.
Once I read that I thought, wait, Japanese funeral customs is for cremation, not burial! The Nikkei Museum digital collection has an example of a Buddhist shrine, a large butsudan and butsugu (accessories) that includes a small red cloth covered book, possibly owned by Tamiko Nakamuro, and on the fifth page in English is written ‘The Buddhist Sutras compiled by Rev. R Hirahara, Sandon, BC and Rev S. Ikuta Raymond Alta Published by the Raymond Church Alberta’. This indicates that Buddhist practices were being followed, however, there are also a couple of photographs of funerals from the early 1940s in New Denver with mourners surrounding wreath covered caskets. I am not alone is wondering about this. Greg Nesteroff (https://gregnesteroff.wixsite.com/kutnereader/post/written-in-concrete ) questions the Sandon cemetery speculations as well. His own research found that between 1942 and 1979, of the 239 registered Japanese-Canadian deaths in New Denver and area, only 10% were buried. Between 1942 and 1944, the first three deaths in Sandon were cremated, the remaining 11 were cremated in New Denver. There are no burials reported. More research will have to be conducted, and if anyone knows more, please kindly share.
This is the first of a series called ‘Vacationing with Death: What I did this Summer’.
Well, it’s a bleak January morning so I thought I’d look for some brightness in the wake of the Lunar New Year. During a bout of nostalgia in the darker part of the annual cycle I decided I would share what I did over my summer break. That’s right! I’m going to share my holiday pics with you all…well the ones that have to do with Death, cemeteries, ghost towns, natural disasters, and finding positive moments that interrupt Death (Death with Interruptions by Nobel Prize winner Saramago was one of my summer reads – highly recommend it).
Up first – pictures and a myth about one of Alberta’s worst ever NATURAL DISASTERS: FRANK SLIDE
Views of Turtle Mountain and slide debris from Frank Slide Interpretive Centre walk – yes, those are people in the distance in the first image.
THE MYTH ABOUT “FRANKIE SLIDE”
A persistent story that lingers long after the devastating and tragic natural disaster known as the Frank Slide of 1903 is that a baby girl survived the collapse of the East face of Turtle Mountain near the town of Frank, in the Crowsnest Pass. It took only 100 seconds to bury the valley floor in 14 metres of rock, disperse 44 million cubic metres of limestone, killing at least 90 of the 600 residents. The rocks buried homes, mines, railway lines, and the Crowsnest Pass River. The rocks slid at 120 km/hr and the booming thunder of noise was heard as far north as Cochrane, 200km away.
But back to the myth of ‘Frankie Slide’, the baby girl supposedly found sitting on a rock in the wake of the slide. This is not true. There never was a ‘Frankie Slide’, there were, however, three known young survivors. These young girls were three of 23 survivors of the slide who lived on Manitoba Avenue on the southeastern edge of town. Fernie Watkins, 3 years old, was found outside of her family home; Marion Leitch, only 27 months old, was supposedly found on a pile of hay near her home, presumably thrown there by the force of the catastrophe. And finally, Gladys Ennis, the youngest at 15 months, was saved by her parents after choking on mud. It’s possible that the eponymous young survivor may very well be an amalgamation of these three survivors, but none were named Frankie Slide.
View from roadside historical stop. Railway tracks are still used on the other side of the rock verge. The car is a Prius to give some sense of scale
To put this catastrophe into perspective let’s start with statistics about the rock slide itself (source: ww.frankslide.ca/learn):
1 km wide
425 metres high
150 metres thick
3 square kilometres of the valley floor was buried under 14 metres of limestone and some as deep as 45 metres deep.
To picture this geological terror, using the debris, a wall could be built from Victoria BC to Halifax NS that was 1 metre wide, by 6 metres high, approximately 4,480 km in a straight line. (Sidenote: I actually went to school in England with a ‘dry stone mason’ who could probably build that wall.)
Twenty survivors were pulled from the wreckage in the immediate aftermath. Of the 90 missing or dead residents only 12 bodies were originally recovered because the rock coverage was too thick and most rocks too large to move. In 1922 road construction uncovered the cottage of the Clark family, and six bodies of members of the family were recovered.
Even in such desolation and destruction, life finds a way to continue and grow. View of Slide debris from Frank Slide Interpretive Centre walk.
Another slide is imminent. In fact, scientists continue to monitor Turtle Mountain’s movements – yep, it’s true, it moves a few millimetres each year towards the northeast. They have calculated that new slides are likely to occur near a series of large cracks found in the South and Third Peaks zones. When a slide does occur, it would likely be about 1/6 the size of the original slide of April, 14, 1903.
You can learn more by visiting the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre in person at Crowsnest Pass, Alberta or online at www.frankslide.ca
PHOTO CREDITS: All photographs by author unless otherwise noted.
Firstly, I have to thank everyone who came out to hear the talk, familiar and new faces, to the Calgary Public Library team for coordinating it all, and to everyone behind the scenes who helped me get there, THANK YOU!
And here below, are some key points I covered in the Novel Alternatives talk and links to external websites with specific information if you wish to follow up with them directly or email me with any questions!
My objective as a Death Doula and Death Positive Advocate is to help people become comfortable with talking about death and dying AGAIN. This is not something new to our society, it’s just over 100 years since the most common form of dying, was dying at home, with family. Things changed fast in Canada, but not in ways we may be led to believe by mainstream media, and dominant ideologies about funerals.
Burial has been a tradition for centuries in Western society and yet, contrary to popular belief, inn Canada, as of 2014 nearly 69% of our dead were cremated, and it is expected to rise to over 75% by 2025, in part because of cost of burials, but also because of the lack of space. So why do we still think of Burial as the go to funeral rite? I think it’s because funerals are more visually stunning than a cremation on small or big screens: the black hearses moving slowly through the streets, mourners dressed in black with heads bowed, and caskets slowly lowered into the ground as rain gently falls all around. Burials just make better visual stories than respectfully placing a casket in a cremation retort or furnace, pushing a button, and waiting the allotted time.
Witte, Emanuel de, 1616/18-1692. Interior of Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam: det.: coat of arms on pillar. 1657. Timken Museum of Art.
Life + Death = Storytelling
“The only thing that kept me going was stories. Stories are hope. They take you out of yourself for a bit, and when you get dropped back in, you’re different- you’re stronger, you’ve seen more, you’ve felt more. Stories are like spiritual currency.”
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Book of Dreams
Everyone has a significant death story – that moment that interrupts us living our lives where we recognize that Death exists. It may be the loss of our childhood pet, a loving grandparent, or the tragic loss of a best friend or parent. It may be a natural disaster, COVID-19, war, or trauma. These significant death moments inform how we approach our own deaths, and deaths of loved ones. We often, unconsciously, start with a story about the deceased – Grief, the eternal companion to death, is funny that way, directing us to share our losses with one another. Historically to ease our grief, we humans would share stories, carefully wrapped in religious rituals and cultural traditions. We gathered together to remember them, remembering that we too will die (memento mori), but also to remind ourselves that we still live on (memento vivere) but without our loved ones physically present, we carry them with us in memories, objects, and each other as shared stories.
HOW DO YOU IMAGINE YOUR AFTERLIFE?
Hieronymus Bosch. Garden of Earthly Delights (open): left wing: Paradise (Garden of Eden), central panel: Garden of Earthly Delights, right wing: Hell (Inferno). circa 1504. o/w. Museo del Prado.
Whether you have personal, religious, or cultural beliefs, there are choices to be made in Alberta and these choices are often made based on our expectations for After Lives. Some choices, however, are legal requirements, others are social expectations, and still others, just make me wonder: why? Well, the why usually comes down to our local customs and expectations being based mostly on Christian, Eurocentric practices, particularly our legal requirements.
WHAT IS LEGALLY REQUIRED IN ALBERTA
Good question, what is legally required comes down to two choices of what to do with a dead body:
Burial – interred in a cemetery (grave, or tomb)
Fire cremation – interred in a mausoleum or columbarium; kept by loved one;
scattered, or oh, so many other creative choices…
There is a third option but it really is just an intermediary step towards choices 1 or 2. Scientific Donation to medical, research, or educational institutions is intermediary because once the donation study has been completed family may arrange to pick up the body, or cremains, or the donation is interned by the institution.
Hepburn finding the perfect spot, photo credit Dr. Dam, 2022
GETTING CREATIVE WITH LIMITED CHOICES
There are however, further creative options for meeting the legal requirements. These really do need to be planned out in advance, as some take months to organize.
Mary Patricia Dam, hands of love, Sept. 2018, photo by Dr. Dam
HOME DEATH/SERVICE
With some forethought it is possible to die at home in Alberta. If a death is immanent and all parties affected agree (the loved one, their legal representatives for example) arrangements can be made to be transported home. If a loved one dies in hospital, hospice, or a Long-term Care facility a home funeral is still an option but requires the deceased to be transported home for the service. A Funeral Home can assist with the transportation and other legal requirements. I am doing a separate blog on Natural/Green Burials including Home Services. Watch for it in the coming weeks.
BURIALS IN CALGARY
Prairie Sky Cemetery, Aug. 2022, Photo CREDIT: Dr. Dam
Cemeteries are an example of necrogeography, a specific place to gather with the dead. To visit our loved ones, to remember and memorialize them. Victorian era cemeteries were designed as leisure spaces – places to memorialize loved ones but also to promenade, see and be seen, a 19th Century version of date night, if you will. Picnics were popular in and amongst the headstones, under sprawling trees, or architectural follies. Today, many cemeteries are popular tourist attractions, people visiting the graves of the famous or infamous in what is known as Dark Tourism.
CALGARY AREA CEMETERIES
Prairie Sky Cemetery, 12800 100th St. SE – NEW as of 2019
Queen Elizabeth 3219 4th St. NW
Burnsland Cemetery – Cemetery Road + Spiller Road SE
The Chinese Cemetery – Macleod Tr + 31st Ave SW
St. Mary’s + Pioneer Cemetery – Erlton St. + 32nd Ave SW
Union Cemetery – Cemetery Road + Spiller Ave. SE
North Calgary Regional Cemetery – Currently in planning stages
OTHER AREA CEMETERIES: Airdrie, Cochrane and Okotoks have cemeteries.
Prairie Sky Cemetery is the newest cemetery to open in Calgary. It is situated to the east of Ralph Klein Park off 100 St. S.E. and 130 Ave. S.E, and is the first new cemetery built by The City since Queen’s Park opened in 1940 and the first to offer green/natural burials. More details in a future blog post!
GETTING CREATIVE WITH DEATH: LEGACY AND MEMORIAL HEIRLOOMS
There are so many options on what to do with cremated remains – as long as the loved one’s remains are treated respectfully and a craftsperson or professional is willing to work with you, what you can imagine is probably possible. It is important to remember that most novel alternatives require very small amounts of cremated remains (often just a teaspoon or two) so it is important to plan for the care or disposition (i.e. scattering) of the remaining cremains.
Jewellery – there are a number of options. Local jewellers may take inherited pieces and refashion them into new pieces, others may create wearable pieces that include cremains.
Glassworks – small amounts of ash are added to molten glass and appear as bubbles in the finished work. Artists will have set designs but there is a rainbow of colours to choose from to customize the piece.
Diamonds – Again, use small amounts of cremains and take months to create. Prices vary depending on size.
Artist Portrait – a growing area for artists is to create portraits or expressions of loved ones, incorporating remains into the paint. Vinyl records – This UK based company will take a small amount of cremains and add them to the vinyl record, that is playable so choose your song carefully!
T-Shirts – This practice began as part of African-American remembrance practices, but is now more mainstream. Kami Fletcher, academic in thanatology and African American studies, states, “R.I.P. T-shirts are ritualized mourning wear…Having multiple origin stories that tie back to 1980s and 1990s urban gang culture, and the burgeoning hip- hop culture, these T-shirts feature a high-definition picture of the decedent with imagery and phrases important to his/her life and the bereaved family. The pictures are carefully picked and most likely convey an important memory to the wearer or bereaved family… the R.I.P. T-shirt resists stereotypes that marginalize Black mourning, showing that the deceased were part of kinship networks that miss them fiercely…”
Photography – This is also a growing creative memorial practice and many photographers will work with loved ones online, or offer apps that allow families to create their own digital photographic album or timeline.
Digital stories – Similar to photographic opportunities online, apps will allow the living to create and share stories about the deceased accessible anyone one has access to the internet. Tattoos – are a very permanent way to memorialize a loved one who has passed. There are challenges to this practice as currently, there is very small group of tattoo artists comfortable with using cremains in the ink. Arts Activities – Regular reports are made in the news about creative ways family and friends are remembering the dead. A recent one I read about was about a group of friends who learnt synchronized swimming to honour a deceased friend (Seattle water ballet). Locally, Calgary has an artist collective that hosts workshops and annual Autumn Equinox vigils in local cemeteries, www.equinoxvigil.ca And finally, it is possible to start a legacy memorial before you or your loved one has passed on. A favourite is having friends and family contribute stories, anecdotes, and quotes about the dying in a scroll as part of the vigil process, and the completed scroll is then unfurled and shared as part of the celebration of life.
Memento Mori tattoo, design + photo credit SC Dam
NOVEL MEMORIALS
These options are not currently available in Alberta, but with enough money, and planning you may be able to follow through…
CREMATION
Outdoor open fires/pyres – not legal in Canada, and the only place in North America where it is Creston, Colorado but only residents of the town are allowed open fire cremation. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/crestone-end-of-life-project Water or alkaline hydrolysis – is legal in Saskatchewan, Quebec, and Ontario. It uses heated water (160C) and potassium hydroxide; uses fewer resources therefore has a smaller ecological footprint: uses 90% less of resources and takes approximately 4-6 hours, leaving behind ash-like remains.
Cremain Tree urns – Capsula Mundi, is another form of human composting involving placing remains in ‘pods’ from which a tree grows, from Italy, and not available in very many places (yet). https://www.capsulamundi.it/en/
Growing New (green) Life: No one’s cremains are nutritionally beneficial to plant life, they will always require soil to grow any new life. So any service offering to use cremains to grow plants will require adding nutrients to counter the high salt content, as well as add missing nutrients, to a seed or seedling. It uses a very small amount of cremated remains. My very frugal, green-thumbed, deceased grandparents are yelling at me from the Beyond about how easy this would be to do in my garden with a packet of seeds…just saying.
PHEW! We made it to the end! Thanks for sticking with me here. There are so many creative ways to memorialize ourselves and our loved ones. If you can imagine it, it probably can be done. The tricky part is finding skilled crafts people who are willing to help you. I have a resource page with links and more information HERE or check out the Resources Page in the Menu at the top.
Well, this happened. My own piece of Memento Mori – Remember Death – permanently on me. At all times reminding me that this life is finite. Use it well. Do good. Take naps.
Skulls have a long history in art as reminders to the viewer that death is inevitable. We cannot escape it so live life well. What ‘well’ looked like depended on time, place, societal expectations. The Dutch Golden age was when Memento Mori art was taken to new levels. Memento Mori or Vanitas paintings were popular with wealthy Dutch merchants who wanted to spend their money without looking like they had money, so they commissioned religious works for their homes. Wealthy and pious, a 17th C winning combination. Images with skulls, mirrors, hourglasses, flower arrangements in different states of decomposition, bread, or a watch or clock all symbolised the temporality of our existence.
Me. Underneath it all
Jacobsz, Dirck. Pompeius Occo, Banker, Merchant and Humanist. ca. 1531. Oil on panel, Rijksmuseum.
The skull in combination with other symbols created detailed reminders of how to live a good life, and die well. For example, place a skull, as symbol of mortality, and a carnation, emblem of the hope for eternal life, together in a work, such as found in Dirck Jacobsz’s portrait of Pompeius Occo. This banker, merchant and humanist was reminded that living a pious life meant being rewarded in the afterlife. A candle and a skull reminded the viewer, versed in Christian symbolism of the day, that life was short and death comes to all.
The Romans borrowed from the Egyptians the use of symbols as “representing man’s corporeal state after death” (Janson 423) but rather than a mummy the Romans used a skeleton. Early Christians only used the skeleton in artworks to represent the grave of Adam and it was placed beneath the cross of the crucified Christ. They also used the skeleton in the Vision of Ezekiel (37:1-8), where Ezekiel resurrects the dead. Sometime around the 12th C the full skeleton was reduced to a skull (presumed by viewers to represent Adam) and a handful of bones. By the Middle Ages the skeleton was still in use, but not as a reminder of salvation through Christ, but to use the horrors of death and the corruption of the body to “evoke greater piety” (Janson 427). The human skull was condensed and abstracted by the Renaissance Italians into what became a universal symbol of death.
C. Allan Gilbert. 1892, All is Vanity. Illustration
Dior Ad Poison Perfume. inspired by Charles Allen Gilbert’s painting, “All is Vanity”
However, Michael Kearl thoroughly outlined a confluence of cultural trends racing towards the Millennium that emptied the symbolic reminder of our mortality. By the 1990’s the skull had been eroticised, politicized and commodified. The 20thC century and photography brought new interpretations of the skull that included combining death and sex, death and politics, and death and capitalism.
Louis Jules Duboscq-Soleil (French, 1822-1894). Still life with skull. ca. 1850. daguerreotype. 8.3×6.9cm. (1/6 plate). George Eastman House.
Philippe Halsman, Dali and the Skull (in Voluptate Mors), 1951, photograph.
Alexander McQueen. Classic silk skull scarf. Silk. Fashion scarf. 2010
Throughout the 20th C skulls would become associated with mass genocides, organized crime, and capitalism, for example Dior’s perfume from the 1980’s ad that plays off of Gilberts 19thC work, or Damien Hirst’s infamous use of skulls for art, and consequently of great value, seen in his works “For the Love of God’ (2007) and its accompanying piece “For Heaven’s Sake”, an authentic infant skull covered in platinum and diamonds. Sold respectively for $100 million and $50 million. Death is no longer the great equalizer, if you want to own a symbol of it, at least…
Damien Hirst, For the Love of God., Part: 3/4 view. 2007; skull with diamonds
Damien Hirst. For Heaven’s Sake., Part: 3/4 view. 2008. Child’s skull with pink diamonds http://www.damienhirst.com/for-heavenas-sake
Skulls have never gone out of fashion. A quick amazon search returns over 100,000 products with skulls associated with them. I own a number of artworks by artists that are of skulls, such as my pandemic purchase by Caitlin McCormack (https://www.caitlintmccormack.com/about )
My tattoo skull is not only a reminder, it is also a self-portrait. It’s the red glasses that give it that personal touch but this could represent anyone. Skulls are universal. We all have one. Unique in its shape, protecting our lifetime of wounds, memories, and imaginations. But it’s also a universal reminder: this is all of us. Underneath it all.
#deathdoula
#deathpositivity
#deathpositive
#artanddeath
#hepburnskeleton
#deathtalk
#talkingaboutdeath
#deathandlife
#deathawareness
#endoflifeplanning
#endoflifedoula
#skulls
#tattooskulls
#mementomori
#rememberdeath
#underneathitall
#caitlinmccormack
#phillippehalsman
SOURCES:
Kearl, Michael C. “The Proliferation of Skulls in Popular Culture: A Case Study of How the Traditional Symbol of Mortality Was Rendered Meaningless.” Mortality, vol. 20, no. 1, Feb. 2015, pp. 1–18. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13576275.2014.961004.
Janson, Horst W. “The Putto with the Death’s Head.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 3, 1937, pp. 423–49. JSTOR, JSTOR, doi:10.2307/3045691.
IMAGES: either author’s photographs or from artstor.org, unless otherwise stated.
Sign up starts tomorrow, September 1, 2022 for my ‘Novel Alternatives’ to traditional funeral practices an interactive lecture with the #calgarypubliclibrary . It’s free but limited space.
Sombre wakes, black clothing, or graveside mourning not your style – want to learn about what else you can do to celebrate your’s or a loved one’s life? This free, interactive lecture At Memorial Library, part of the Calgary Public Library, will introduce you to a wide range of other funeral and burial practices available in Calgary. Some alternatives sparkle like the morning dew, others allow you to become one with the world, still others allow you to share yourself with all your loved ones in creative and artistic ways.
Click here for the CPL sign-up page and further info. Or go to the Calgary Public Library website events page and search art and death.
I’m excited to ask you to save the date: Sept. 28th as I’m partnering with the Calgary Public Library to facilitate an interactive workshop about alternatives to traditional burial and cremation practices.
Space is limited, so sign-up starts on Sept. 1. You can do this on the Calgary Public Library website under Events and Programs and read more about this and other CPL events.
