I intended to finish up my exploration of the imagery of art of dying by passing out these pins I had made of a pressed flower and obituary page on these hand cut and stamped coffin shapped business cards.  The pins took far longer than expected, so here they are, ready to be launched into coffee shops and other places I frequent hopefully to be found by unsuspecting folks going about their day.

It’s a lot to ask of any creative endeavor to “make a people think” so I will send these off with a prayer to just help folks pause and possibly just be blessed by a gift. 

I have written as much as I think I will for now about the art of the dying but this site has several expressions of the imagery of fading flowers, wilting grass and flying time.  There are a couple of  bigger pieces and while I continue to be fascinated by the works of Holbien the younger and his Dance of the Dead wood cuts and other such works of art, and while I have some more ideas along the same path I am pretty excited about exploring what’s before me, “Family Curse” and expect to spend a good amount of time working on that theme, as well as some other projects in the coming months. 

I hope to revisit the art of dying themes next fall for Day of the Dead, but for now this is where I rest from this series.

Below is basically the letter I wrote for my brother in law, a great kid, still in High School who really inspired me this last week by his desire to give gifts for his family, earning and spending his own money to get gifts, real gifts, for his family, and his new brothers in law.

A little about this gift…

It is a portion of a letter tray, used for holding type, I love trying to figure out how to design and create in small spaces and it allows for there to be more than one thing being said at a time…like our lives, but we are also beyond compartmentalizing ourselves.

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Your initials, mine too, and I was glad to share the few letters I had to make you a gift.

The first little jar has the phrenology head you like, sorry I don’t have a spare one I can part with right now, but if I did, you would have it.  But the image is powerful to me because it is a great example of humanity’s attempts to understand ourselves, our behaviors and our souls.  It is a scientific attempt but it ultimately fails.  The jar contains withered grass and a pinch of dust; both from a graveyard, reminders of our mortality and that there is a terminal limit on searching for self knowledge.

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You are one of the few people I talk with who both enjoys political discussion and also sees limits to our system the way it is.  I did a piece called “Neither Ballots NOR Bullets,” you saw it and this little piece is based upon it.  Christianity and the Bible are above politics though they have political relevance, Jesus didn’t come to setup a political system or support a political party.  The bullet I found in a parking lot and the Rockefeller campaign “pin” is from either his 1960, 64 or 68 presidential bid and it is the kind of “pin” that you would fold the back over the top of your shirt pocket to clasp it.  I had Goldwater too, but thought you’d appreciate the Rockefeller pin more; money, moderate social stances, fiscally sounds, etc.

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Key holes to me represent mystery, we don’t know everything, nor can we…it’s not wrong to ask questions as long as you can handle not everything has an answer or more accurately we may not understand the answer. 

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”

Light bulb, because you are very bright, as in, intelligent, but the bulb also must be connected to the source to shed light to others. We are at our best when connected to the source,  and we also, despite our understanding and intelligence must also be ok being next to mystery.

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Family Curse Jar

You are the first to receive or even see this piece (besides my close confidant, your sister).  I am working on a new piece that is about curses, and family curses, but it isn’t about our immediate or even distant ancestors, it is about Adam and Eve and their fall and the curse we all bear now.  It is based upon hoo doo (African American folk religion/magic)  of the mojo bags and conjure men and women)  So the jar collects symbols of the curses…cursed earth, from the graveyard, snake skin, tears/sweat from child labor and hard work, thorns and thistles from a ground no longer easy to work, a “nation bag,” used by women in Memphis to allure and dominate men, symbol of Eve’s struggle and fig leaf stamps, exiled from the garden in our nakedness…­

“Remember you will die” 

Like a broken record, the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastics repeats the phrase “under the sun” over and over as he contemplates the human condition.  His earthly perspective and questions and experiential basis for answering predates and anticipates the Greek philosophical tradition by almost 500 years.  Here is a man seeking to understand life below a heavenly perspective and seek what is the best way we should live…and the answer is in recognition that we will die. 

Rich, poor, wise, foolish, sinner and saint, we will all die.

Just as in Plato’s dialogues, where Socrates stated that philosophy is about preparing to die, learning how to live in light of our own mortality, the Preacher calls us to consider how we should live.

However in the midst of this grim perspective, in the context of God’s wisdom we see what our great blessing is during all the days of our lives.  Ecc 9:7-9 stands out to me, “Eat..with happiness, drink…with a cheerful heart.  God has already approved your works…Enjoy life with the woman you love all the days of your fleeting life…”

Influenced by Biblical texts such as the Book of Ecclesiastes and historical events such as the Black Plague and the 100 Years War, the people of late medival Europe were constantly facing death and remined to be prepared for it.

As with my exploration of other elements of the art of dying, this piece doesn’t offer a solution or even suggest morality is the key.  Of course it doesn’t also suggest a childish “seize the day” impulse in the face the our own mortality. I simply hoped to create pieces that would remind us that we are in fact mortal, we will die, as I think we are prone to forget or deny that ugly, lonely truth.

I started this piece in August, after finishing the Memento Mori devotion cover, and it draws on much of the same imagery and symbolism.  It was also began just as I started to look into the Art of Dying and Dance Macabre movements in Europe. It is mostly how I envisioned it but I considered many directions along the way and ultimately I am not as satisfied with it as I would have been had I finished it in September. Having created a few other pieces that I have learned from and been stretched by, this piece feels very direct, making an obvious statement, at least it feels that way to me, and because of that it isn’t as engaging to me, but I thought I would share in honesty rather than hide it away.

“All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field…The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”

More imagery exploring the art of dying, these pressed flowers and obituaries were actually the inspiration for the giving tins. 

Visually, I have found the obituaries a striking and linear background to the organic and fragile pressed wild flowers. 

 The theme and text are taken from Isaiah

So I was really excited about the Day of the Dead exhibit at 21C, I just didn’t realize what I expected to see was last year’s exhibit!  I don’t remember how I even found the webpage, but I never realized the exhibit was located in the past exhibits section of the site.  So I did not actually see the past event.

At first I was disappointed about the outdoor installation for the current exhibit, Going Home, but I got over it quickly as this is an amazing work, featuring over 10,000 hand cut butterflies designed with Day of the Dead colors and images.  The monarch butterflies these paper ones portray migrate between the US and Mexico and so it was a fitting image for remembering the 14 Mexican immigrants, the “Yuma 14,” who died crossing the Arizona desert. 

The full description and story of Going Home is here. 

I had to go back today to get pictures that would at least attempt to do this installation some justice.  Hope you get a chance to go downto 7th and Main to catch a glance.

“All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field…The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”

For this image in my exploration of  the art of dying, I wanted to focus on the flowers that fade.  Not only is it an image used in memento mori art but even traditional painted still lifes (formerly called vanitas) relate the wilting flower to the frailty of our passing glory. 

I discovered a pressed rose in an old Bible I picked up at a Goodwill store.  What could be a more striking example of the vanity of our lives? 

A forgotten rose from an unknown funeral in an unmarked Bible. 

And so the flower fades.  Our lives pass.

 The theme and text are taken from Isaiah. The tins consist of flowers picked from fields, old obituaries and headstones inside the tins, copied from shapes in local cemeteries.

A voice says, “Call out.”
Then he answered, “What shall I call out?”

“All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. 

The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”

Continuing my interest in the art of dying, these giving tins were developed as another contemplation of our mortality, the shortness and frailty of our lives.

The theme and text are taken from Isaiah. The tins consist of obituaries and grass from a cemetery, viewed through a headstone shaped hole. 

Again, my interest is not a teenage morbid fixation on death (well I hope not at least) but rather exploring new expressions of memento mori.

I am totally excited about the new Dias de los Muertos exhibit being held at 21c Nov 1st to Nov 9th, 2009. 

Definitely an inspiration behind my own exploration of the Art of Dying. 

Hope you can make it out.

I am still amazed by the old watches I got this summer, and as I have been researching a couple projects about the art of dying  I have seen the image of the hour glass with skulls, reminders that our “days are numbered.”  Making the most of the time we have is the theme, from the ancient Romans who gave us tempus fugit to the medieval focus on morality and preparation for death.  However you choose to think about your mortality and spend your life, the fact remains that time moves on and you can’t get it back.

I find the image striking either way and just enjoy looking at them.  Hope you enjoy.

 Like a broken record, the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastics repeats the phrase “under the sun” over and over as he contemplates the human condition.  His earthly perspective and questions and experiential basis for answering predates and anticipates the Greek philosophical tradition by almost 500 years.  Here is a man seeking to understand life below a heavenly perspective and seek what is the best way we should live…and the answer is in recognition that we will die. 

Rich, poor, wise, foolish, sinner and saint, we will all die.

Just as in Plato’s dialogues, where Socrates stated that philosophy is about preparing to die, learning how to live in light of our own mortality, the Preacher calls us to consider how we should live.

However in the midst of this grim perspective, in the context of God’s wisdom we see what our great blessing is during all the days of our lives.  Ecc 9:7-9 stands out to me, “Eat..with happiness, drink…with a cheerful heart.  God has already approved your works…Enjoy life with the woman you love all the days of your fleeting life…”

Morality has been the aim of the art of Memento Mori in art history (Latin for “Remember you will die”), to encourage people in light of their mortality.  And as I reflected on the theme in Ecclesiastics I was stirred to also remember that we are not able to save ourselves through our own morality, that God remembered us, and sent Jesus to live the life of righteousness we couldn’t, and conquer death after conquering sin.

And so the piece departs from the traditional imagery of mortality, fading flowers and time flying and ends with contemplating Christ’s own death, His burial and His triumph over death.