Bay Area
Art for Life and Death's Sake
by Bente Mirow
Life is an artwork all by itself, reflected through the ways we were, things we did, things we overcame, the flavor with which we met others and the world.
An inspired woman's thoughts have given birth to a unique enterprise to honor life in death through art.
Funeria, an arts organization headed by Maureen Lomasney, came to be in 2001 with the idea of designer urns and vessels to honor loved ones long after they are gone by integrating fine art with the afterlife, and in the process help bring death more into the light and out of the dusty, dark, gloomy corridors of funeral homes whose doors we fear entering.
Lomasney has a background in marketing strategy, communication, non-profit and corporate work. She is also an artist, writer, designer and photographer always looking for new ways to approach things. Her idea was quietly and slowly nurtured into life over a period of three years, fertilized by her previous endeavor, Tanning Creek Press, a small publishing company specializing in helping individuals find words to honor their own life or the life of someone they love.
After reading an article called "Cremation Sweeps the Nation" in 1997 she saw a glaring absence in the urn makers involvement in marketing their art.
Not until after she turned 50 years old did she resolve that she wanted to and could do work which has been defined as "proactively bridging the worlds of industry, philosophy and art."
About 50 international artists now are part of Funeria's traveling show, "Ashes to Art," which started in San Francisco in 2001 and has since been to Paris, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Chicago and Vancouver.
This year, Funeria opened a permanent gallery space in Graton, CA, "Art Honors Life," about one and a half hour north of San Francisco. An old fruit-drying barn converted to art space reflects the expansiveness of life in Lomansey's view, who has worked in the building for more than 10 years.
The urns and vessels are as unique and as different as people's lives.
From gorgeous porcelain urns to whimsical silver canisters there is an artful urn to symbolize any personality and life.
Another urn looks like a giant cigar which holds two cabinets inside: one with a built-in humidifier and lined with Spanish cedar to hold fresh cigars to be smoked during life; the other is a compartment for the person's ashes. Four little wooden drum-like containers allow siblings, for example, to share a parent's remains. A silver mold of two hands can hold the ashes of another.
In the fall, Funeria will be adding a new dimension, an exhibit called "Scattered," focusing on ways to scatter someone's remains. For example, an eggshell urn can hang with yarn over a river designed to scatter the ashes within when the yarn frays and the shell falls. Or the remains of a loved one can be mixed with birdseed and beeswax in a teardrop-shaped container, so birds will eat the seeds and in the process scatter the ashes accordingly.
Work included in the shows or the portfolio is juried by judges of significant international standing. Adela Akers is the on-site adjunct adviser, with 23 years of teaching background at Tyler School of Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia. A weaver herself, she has worked with glass, wood, sculpting, painting and fiber and feels she has learned immensely from her students. She explains that uniqueness is important in the judging criteria , yet it is more important for the art to be good than different. The purpose of the artwork≠its spiritual dimension≠is also considered, but craftsmanship is the bottom line. Has she chosen her own urn? No, but she has gotten a wider view of how people see death and how they make their decisions. She wants to be scattered at sea.
Though beautifying death is an ambitious and provocative undertaking, clearly it is not a goldmine with customers lined up to buy their own urns.
Lomasney researched the cremation business, a path she never imagined. She found that cremation had risen from 8% to 32% in one year; in Marin County, CA, there has been an 80% cremation rate and it is expected that the majority of all deaths will be cremated by 2025.
Reasons to cremate include that it is substantially less expensive than burial, often more convenient for the family in charge of the schedule and the event, and to some people it is both more practical and more spiritual since families move around. Additionally, less land is occupied and more open land preserved. Also, such practices as embalming are becoming less acceptable for many people due to the chemical interference, which stands in opposition to those who have lived their life more organically. A trend for natural burials in biodegradable urns such as wood boxes or papier-m‚chÈ is on the rise.
With a healthy combination of heart, purpose and business, Lomansey knows that any business set-up has its own challenges, and that building a successful business is key before becoming philanthropic.
However, Lomansey's focus is the artwork. She feels strongly that artists need to be paid what they deserve and is in the business to help them make a living, while simultaneously serving people who are forward thinking.
Her work offers opportunities to treat the end of life differently than what is dictated by the funeral industry, an industry in great flux.
She may be called on to help define or confirm the bridge between spirit and personality and character. A woman called to order an urn from the catalogue for her husband and daughter. Lamensey cautioned her that this item, created by Randy O'Brian and inspired by coral, lichen and volcanic fissures on earth, is coarse and cracky to the touch. The woman responded eagerly that so were they, it was a perfect match.
She may have to help match the size of the preferred urn with what it will hold. Is it for one person, two to be mingled, a person plus a pet or a portion of one? The size of a person determines the amount of ashes. 200 cubic inches equals one pound of person equals 13 cups of dry measure. Lamensey explains how our incinerated remains are gritty and look a bit like ground-up seashells. After the first process, the individual cremation operator decides how finely processed the remains will be, each with their own preference. Lamensey uses a mixture of oatmeal and brown rice as the approximate consistency for measuring when she needs to test an urn for applicability to a certain request.
Before her own mother died recently she had chosen an urn from the gallery. She wanted to be buried in a beautiful porcelain piece. Lamensey believes it helps the grieving process to see the art in a continuum; that it is profound that art goes on and has its own place in our culture, while the artist's contribution also maintains a life of its own.
Cremation can give people the feeling that they master their own fate even after death. Reduced to matter, people know that the spirit is gone, yet Buddhist and others believe that some energy remains in human relics, containing essential parts of their being.
Artists who create urns and containers for their fellow man's worldly cremains, as they are also called, must be sensitive and spiritually open as well as skilled artisans.
Lamensey and Funeria are hoping to help funeral homes change into part art galleries. In the process she is helping to demystify what happens to bodies when people die, helping people fill the process with love. Above all, she has created a beautiful opportunity for the living artist to honor life and death together.
For more information visit www.funeria.com.
Bente Mirow is a freelance writer. She can be reached at hyggemer@netscape.net.