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Stoneshadows

- There is a partnership between human expression and the institution of burial known as cemetery. It is known as a land of visitation of the dead in a garden of stone.

- Creative personalized headstones, sculptures and monuments give refuge to the living as a landscape of reflection, mourning, and respect. Preserving cemeteries, relics and its' landscape is important so continued family genealogy and history can be treasured.


- Fourth Creek Cemetery in Statesville, North Carolina is a one example of a great historic cemetery whose headstones are set in a beautiful landscape but there are some headstones and funeral tables needing preservation attention. Photograph by Timothy Juhl.


- Oakwood Cemetery offers a variety of different memorials to those buried there. Selecting memorials for individuals can be erected from a diverse and creative number of options including artistic sculptures and unusally sized and shaped gravemarkers like the ones shown here. Above, Rubicon. Below, Timothy-Bender. Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, North Carolina.


Photographs by Timothy Juhl

CEMETERY

Historical


- The Greeks practiced cremation in the belief that flames set the soul free while the Egyptians preserved the dead with embalming so that one could travel through time and return to re inhabit the body.

- Early America held church lead graveside ceremonies using coffins filling the grave with dirt.

- Cemeteries are known as the land of visitation to the dead for the living inside a predetermined garden of stone.

- Creatively personalized headstones, sculptures and monuments give refuge to this living landscape of reflection, mourning, and respect. Preserving these relics has become just as important as the preservation of these cemetery sites themselves.



The Rousseau Cemetery in Clearwater, Florida is a great example of a preserved cemetery located in a median of land in the middle of an urban development. Located in Clearwater, Florida approximately 1 mile south of Gulf to Bay Boulevard,(SR 60) on South Hercules Avenue,the Rousseau Cemetery
established in 1870 is one of the oldest private family cemeteries in
Pinellas County, Florida.
Photograph by Pam Reagan

- The cemetery is the final resting place for some of the most notable pioneers in Pinellas County History.


- Above is an excellent example of a cemetery with typical headstones adornment where they have attached a permanent photo fetish for Billy Wayne and his car, located in Ebenezer Church Cemetery of Raleigh, North Carolina. Photograph by Timothy Juhl.



- The willow tree is a popular image on headstones. This example is from City Cemetery, Raleigh, North Carolina. Photograph by Timothy Juhl

Preservation
- The preservation primer of graveyards is vital to maintaining the beauty and funtionality which includes:

develop a plan

gravestone rubbings

volunteers

public awareness

security and funding

archeology

conservation professional

resetting old stones

monument repair

cemetery legislation


- Cemeteries provide information about history, burial customs, and local traditions.

- Great research can be done about gravestone materials, symbols, art, epitaphs, weathering, sizes, shapes, immigrants, natural disasters, epidemics, and plants, mapping, memorials, genealogy, and laws

ARTICLE

Dispatches From the Overworld
by Timothy Juhl


Oakwood Walks

On a recent visit to Oakwood Cemetery, I happened upon an exedra. I was nearly apoplectic. It was like sighting a rare bird. While exedrae have been used in burial since the late 19th century, they are an extravagance; a marker purchased by the well heeled. The Drewry family exedra is surrounded by a number of small stone markers and the visitor can sit in the sun and look out over the grounds amid the generations of Drewrys forever resting.

Oakwood Cemetery was the first cemetery I visited when I moved to Raleigh in 2007. Established in 1869 through a land donation by the Mordecai family, its first purpose was to provide a dignified location to bury North Carolina’s Confederate dead. It is the quintessential cemetery as city park, with lush landscaping, shaded benches, rolling hillsides and brick-paved roads. Many of Raleigh’s founding fathers and mothers are buried here, so too is the first husband of Margaret Mitchell supposedly the inspiration for Rhett Butler. Former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards’ buried his 17-year-old son here. More recently, Senator Jesse Helms took up residence.

There is a profound sense of history as one walks among Oakwood’s famous and regular folk. A beloved basketball coach is buried here, and near his marker is a contemporary sculpture, “Rubicon” by Paris Alexander, a massive stone doughnut, perhaps the resting place for an artist.

On every visit I make to Oakwood, I stop at the grave of Timothy Bender. I don’t know much about him other than he was a Florida Gator fan (as indicated by the memorabilia left there) and that he died in his early 20s. His tombstone is a black granite, ultra-contemporary architectured monument, sleek and stunning at once. It is a standout among the traditional gravestones nearby.

I will always walk Oakwood’s lawns, study the stones and know the forgotten and near-forgotten. I will make my own residence there one day.

Timothy Juhl - 12.17.08

Archives


Last Word Poetry
by Timothy Juhl

The Last Lines She Never Wrote

for louise

You took every dare in language,

in words.

Like crow or

bone or breath.

The poet gets lucky sometimes,

snatching from the dark

a turn, a bend in the metaphor

--bodies are raincoats

So foolhardy, we poets,

writing death into a cliché.

Despite all our verses, our

sonnets, the sestinas and

villanelles, and all those

unfinished stanzas,

despite our attempts

to define it, defy it

death does not wait

for the ink to dry,

seldom stands for

another revision.

It is the absence of your words

I hear loudest right now

reading your obituary,

the poem

none of us

wanted to write.

Not even a brash wordsmith

such as I, so cavalier,

would think to edit these,

your last lines.

CULTURE I - FEATURE - Frida Kahlo

"I hope the exit is joyful - and I hope I never come back"

Frida Kahlo


Frida Kahlo is one of the most extraordinary, revealing female Mexican artist of the twentieth century.

- She brings together the Surrealist style of painting into her world of pain, struggle and love. She used painting to overcome her painful healing process from a bus accident and developed some of the most fantastic and vulnerable works of art.

Frida Kahlo - Monographs


The Dream, 1940
Oil on canvas 29.5"x387.5".Private Collection, N. Y.


Self portrait with monkey, 1938
Oil on masonite 16"x12". Collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.


Self portrait, 1939
Oil on masonite 30"x24". Collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.


Two Fridas, 1939
Oil on masonite 67"x67". Collection of the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City



Frida Kahlo's - Principal Exhibitions

·Julian Levy Gallery, New York: 1938 (Individual)

·Galerie Renau et Colle, Paris: 1939 (Mexique)

·Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City: 1940 (Exposicion internacional del surrealismo, touring)

·Galeria de Arte Comtemporaneo, Mexico City: 1953 (individual)



Frida Kahlo


Frida in her studio


Museo de Frida Kahlo

Print Resources

Ankori, Gannit. (2002). Imagining Her selves: Frida Kahlo’s Poetics of Identity and Fragmentation. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press.

Billeter, Erika, Jamioson-Cemper, Kathleen, Pross, Edith M., Sanchez, Arturo. (eds.). (1993). The World of Frida Kahlo: The Blue House. Seattle, WA. University of Washington Press.

White, Anthony. (2001). Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection. Seattle, Washington. Canberra; National Gallery of Australia.

CULTURE I - FEATURE - Day of the dead

Culture


Dia de los muertos

- Around 500 years ago, the Conquistadors encountered native mexicans practicing a ritual known today as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The ritual is celebrated in Mexico and certain parts of the United States.

- Although the ritual has since been merged with Catholic theology, it still maintains the basic principles of the Aztec ritual, such as the use of skulls.

- Today, people wear wooden skull masks called calacas or paint their faces like skeletons and dance and eat in honor of their deceased relatives typically in parades and at the grave sites.

- The wooden skulls and sometime Sugar skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead and have the names of the dead person on the forehead. This cultural event is celebrated usually the week prior to and on the day of November, 1st and 2th and is also known as All Souls Day and All Saints Day.


Day of the Dead Destinations

- Visit great Mexico destinations that celebrate Day of the Dead and experience the celebration first hand where festivities take place in cities and villages throughout Mexico, though each location may have different customs and ways of honoring their dead. You can witness Day of the Dead celebrations anywhere in Mexico, but here are a few of the places where festivities are particularly colorful.


Day of the Dead

- Paper mache skeletons called calaveras are made posing in various work or play activities usually usually portraying the deceased. Sometimes they are bride and groom skeletons and sometimes large oversized puppets are constructed and manned by groups in theatrical parades.



Day of the Dead in Mexico

- Mexican families make trips to the cemeteries during Dia de los Muertos to clean up and decorate the family members grave sites. Vendors typically set up carts around the cemeteries and sell decorations and flowers for the grave sites.

- Local bands play music for the deceased and the families. The larger cities often have parades with horses, dancers and musicians. The vendors take advantage of the large crowds during Dia de los Muertos and sell sugar skulls, candy coffins, and other "Day of the Dead" treats.



- Pan de muerto is a mexican sweet bread traditionally made for Halloween and Day of the Dead. Mexican households prepare an altar for dead loved ones and adorn it with ofrendas including: candles to light the way for the spirits, pictures and personal belongings of the deceased, toy skeletons, wreaths, papel picado or tissue paper cut-outs and brilliant yellow and gold flowers usually marigolds along with food including sugar skulls, pan de muerto or chocolate coffins or skulls.

- It has been known, that amongst the Aztecs, a cake made with amaranth was placed on top of their tumbs. The food is said to nourish the traveling souls and sometimes referred to as earth, wind, water, and fire.

PAN DE MUERTO RECIPE INGREDIENTS

1 cup plus 1 tbsp buttergravegraveGlaze ingredients
1 cup milkgravegravegravegrave g1 cup sugar
1 cup watergravegravegravegrave 8 eggs
11 cups flourgravegravegravegrav 2/3 cup fresh orange juice
1 once dry yeastgravegravegraveg4 tbsps grated orange zest
2 tsps salt
1 cup sugar


Pan de Muerto Recipe Instructions

Pan de Muerto recipe is prepared in celebration of Mexico's Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead Bread is shaped into skulls or round loaves with strips of dough rolled out to resemble bones attached to the loaves.

Dough preparation

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a saucepan over medium heat melt the butter, milk and water until very warm but not boiling. In a mixing bowl, combine 3 cups flour, yeast, salt, anise seed and sugar. Beat the warm liquid until well combined adding eggs. Beat in another 2 cups of flour, then add more flour until dough is soft but not sticky. Knead mixture on a lightly floured board for ten min. until smooth and elastic. Lightly grease mixing bowl with 1 tbsp of butter and place dough in bowl, then cover with plastic wrap, let rise in warm place until double in size (1-2 hours). Punch dough down and at this point, shape dough into skulls, skeletons or round loaves with bones placed ornamentally around the top. Allow loaves to rise for about 1 hour. Bake 4o minutes. Remove from oven, paint on the glaze. Apply to bread with a pastry brush. If desired sprinkled on colored sugar with glaze is still damp.



Day of the Dead Resources

About.com: Mexico's Travel. (2008). Top 5 Day of the Dead Destinations: Where to Celebrate Day of the Dead in Mexico. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.gomexico.about.com Lists the top 5 destinations in Mexico to best experience the festivities of Day of the Dead.

Day of the Dead. (2001). All Saints Day of the Dead. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.mexconnect.com This site covers a deep look into the festivous celebration about the dead.

Day of the Dead in Mexico. (n. d.). Day of the Dead Photographs. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.dayofthedead.com/Photographs.html Mary J. Andrade has posted her experience from her travel to Mexico for Day of the Dead including: links to slideshows, information about the celebration process and her contact information.

Jim Cline Photography. (2005). Day of the Dead in Oaxaca. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.jimcline.com This photographer captures great real-life moments in Day of the Dead experiences.

Mexico Day of the Dead Artwork. (n. d.). Fausto's Gallery. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.ojinaga.com Fausto's Gallery site offers the savoy shopper a wide variety of Day of the Dead items to purchase.

Mexico Connect. (2006). Day of the Dead. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.mexconnect.com This site covers a historical look into the world of Day of the Dead celebration.


Frida Kahlo Resources

Casa Azul Museum. (n. d.). A World Behind Blue Walls. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.museofridakahlo.org/casaazulingles.html The museum site gives a generous look into the life Frida had in this brilliantly painted blue house along with some examples of her paintings.

Frida Kahlo. (1998). Biography. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.fridakahlo.com This colorful site offers a variety of biographical information on Frida Kahlo including: bio, art, film, music, contact, and other links for resources.

Frida Kahlo. (2005). Tate Modern. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/kahlo/bluehouse.shtm The Tate Museum gives an animated view of the Blue House and a timeline of her life.

Murray, Nicholas. (2002). George Eastman House: Still Photograph Archive. Eastman House Rochester New York. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.geh.org/ar/celeb/htmlsrc4/kahlo_sld00001.html Eastman House is an archive of a plethora of still photography.


Stechler, Amy. (2005). The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo: Understanding Frida Today. Retrieved September 25, 2008 from http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/today/herrera.html A great interview with Amy Stechler on her film about Fridamania and the cult push on Frida Kahlo.

CULTURE II - FEATURE - Roadside Memorials

Roadside Memorials
- A memorial marker found along most high ways and usually erected at the site of a tragic accident in which some ones life was cut short.


Unnamed roadside shrine, Tampa Rd., Clearwater, Florida.
Photograph by Pam Reagan


Weathered stuffed animal fetish at a child's graveside, Sylvan Memorial Cemetery, Clearwater, Florida.

Photograph by Pam Reagan

- Roadside memorials are assemblages as remembrances as a tribute to someone who died at that place usually along roadsides. These spontaneous shrines are adorned with any of the following items:

crucifixes

roses

notes

flowers

candles

photos

stuffed animals

poems

rosaries

plants and plastic

plants greeting cards

items the person liked

wreaths including holiday related items



Unnamed roadside shrine, Tampa Rd., Clearwater, Florida.
Photograph by Pam Reagan

- Roadside memorials are created in public domains such as:

fences

stoops

entrances

roadside

sidewalks

overpasses

trees
- These shrines are established spaces to negotiate meaning as tributes to those that have died due to some accident.

- The memorials are sometimes removed from the actual scene-referring to sites of sudden death in poor traffic areas in roads with curves or trees sometimes marked with statistics by MADD or Drive Safely signage.



'Speeding Kills' signage

In Memory of Jennifer Nolletti, McMullin Booth Rd., Clearwater, Florida
Photography by Pam Reagan


Roadside Memorial

'Becky', McMullin Booth Rd., Clearwater, Florida

Photographs by Pam Reagan


Descanso en paz

Rest in peace

- These collective impressions act as sacred cultural grieving spaces of the immediacy of death in everyday life and the permanent and ephemeral objects are symobolically representative of on-going grief and therapy for those left behind.


- Descansos are small chapel like structures that can have a gate that open so that you can put gifts inside sometimes include white crosses two or three feet high and are usually cerquita = close or nearby/cross.

CULTURE II - FEATURE - Cemeteries Defined

Cemeteries Defined

Graveyards & City Cemeteries

- The first formal burying grounds were graveyards located in newly formed municipalities. One of the facts of life is death, and after death the body needed to be disposed. These early graveyards were often little more than garbage dumps with a few haphazard wooden grave markers or gravestones for those souls lucky enough to have a family that could afford one. 

As time went on, some city graveyards became better organized because city fathers were concerned about how they looked and also about health concerns that arose out of less than hygenic burial practices.


Churchyards

- In Colonial America, most folks belonged to some sort of church, and most churches provided burial space for their parishioners. Generally the churchyard, also known as God's Acre, surround the church and, unlike early graveyards, provided a bit more opportunity to erect elaborate and more-or-less permanent memorials to the dead. Although simple tablet gravestones dominate churchyards, there are often a number of specialized tombs, sarcophagi, and sculptures.


Garden & Rural Cemeteries

- A profound change in America's burial grounds occurred in the early nineteenth century with the formation of the first cemeteries. The "cemetery" comes from the Greek koimeterion, "dormitory" (a room for sleeping), via the Latin coemeterium. Although the word appears as early as the fourteenth century, it didn't come into common use in America until the advent of the garden cemetery. 

- Garden cemeteries (sometimes called rural cemeteries) in America can trace their roots to Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise in Paris, France. Pere-Lachaise was founded in 1804in response to the overcrowding in Paris's municipal cemeteries. Pere-Lachaise was modeled on English estate landscape design and was intended to provide a more bucolic environment for tending the dead. 

- American burying grounds soon followed suit with the establishment in 1831 of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as America's first garden cemetery. Except for the tombstones, monuments, and mausoleums, garden cemeteries (with their lush plantings and groomed landscaping) look more like public parks than burying grounds.



Lawn-Park Cemeteries

- Lawn-park cemeteries emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. These vast cemeteries combined elements of rural and garden cemeteries, such as room for large-scale monuments and mausoleums plus the addition of vast lawn areas for flat markers.

Memorial Parks

- Nowadays, most new cemeteries are primarily memorial parks, which have flat markers. Promoters say they provide a more egalitarian and equalized form of burial, and the lack of upright markers softens the impact of death. Detractors say that memorial parks lack artistic integrity and simply make it easier for cemetery owners to mow the lawn. Memorial parks also tend to have large community mausoleums for those who prefer aboveground burial.



Coon Dog Cemetery

Specialty Cemeteries

- America also has a number of specialty cemeteries. These can range from simple family cemeteries that dot the rural landscape, to cemeteries that are reserved for members of secret societies like the Freemasons, Odd Fellows, and Knights of Pythias, to the most popular specialty cemetery--the pet cemetery.


RESOURCES

Print

Keister, Douglas. (2008). Forever Dixie: A Field Guide to Southern Cemeteries & Their Residents.


Websites

An Existential Space: Amblings and ramblings on life and being. (n.d.) Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://botticello.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/ephemeral-memorials/

DarkFiber.com. (2004). A small piece of old weathered wood. Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.darkfiber.com/tomb/headboard.html

Descansos: A Tribute to love. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.descansos.org/links.shtml

Descansos: Roadside memorials on the American Highway. (2000). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/descansos/index.htm


Everlife Memorials: Roadside memorials and Descansos of South Texas. (2000). Retreived December 24, 2008 from http://www.everlifememorials.com/v/headstones/roadside-memorials-south-texas.htm

Flikr: Temporary roadside memorials. (n.d.). Retreived December 24, 2008 from http://www.flickr.com/groups/58842471@N00/

John Rodriguez: Culture: Descansas, A Tribute to Love. (2000). Retreived December 24, 2008 from http://www.utpa.edu/dept/lrgvarchive/Descansos.htm

Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard. (n.d.). Retreived December 23, 2008 from http://www.coondogcemetery.com/index.html

MADD. (n.d.). Retrieved Decmeber 23, 2008 from http://www.madd.org/

Mount Auburn Cemetery. (n.d.). Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.mountauburn.org/

National Park Service. Burial Customs and Cemeteries in American History. Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb41/nrb41_5.htm


Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. (2008). Retrieved December 2008 from http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=

1879&&PageID=280081&level=4&css=L4&mode=2&in_hi_userid=

2&cached=true

Resting Places: The Documentary. (2004). Retrieved Decmeber 24, 2008 from http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/whatever/kc.htm

Roadside Memorials. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://members.tripod.com/jwhiting/roadside.html

Roadside Memorials on the Reservation. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.pbase.com/ravenoaks/roadside_memorials_on_the_reservations

Surf Meixco: Roadside Shrines and Chapels. (n.d.). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.surf-mexico.com/shrines/

Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park and Funeral Home. (2008). Retrieved December 26, 2008 from http://www.sylvanabbey.com/

West Virginia Department of Transportation: Application Form. (2000). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://www.wvdot.com/3_roadways/3d11a2_registration.htm

Wikipedia: The Free encyclopedia. (2008). Retrieved December 24, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_memorial