Art and death

Purgatory

11 November 2011
Charles
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Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to death

THIS IS PURGATORY was filmed by Jimmy Edmonds for Random Stroud, an arts project in which 24 artists were invited to respond to randomly selected map references in the Stroud Valleys area of Gloucestershire, England

Jimmy’s map reference was Purgatory Wood a small copse just to the south east of Swift’s Hill in the Slad Valley.

But what starts out as an attempt to find out why Purgatory Wood is so called quickly becomes a fascinating series of character studies and a reflection on life now and the life hereafter.

This will be one of the best half hours of your life. If you don’t watch this film you will kick yourself from here to eternity. 

This is Purgatory (Part Two) from JIMMY Edmonds on Vimeo.

Brutally creative chaos

10 November 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: alternative funerals, Art and death, ashes, Attitudes to death, ceremony, coffins, Formality vs informality, funeral directors, Good books, Grief

You may remember this post, The Chaos of Meaning, about the photographic essay which Jimmy Edmonds created in commemoration of his son Josh. If you missed it, click the link and go see it; it’s rare that we are lucky enough to post anything so extraordinary and beautiful.

Above is a trailer for a film Jimmy has made about Josh’s funeral. I went to see it earlier this week with; it really is marvellous.

And it complements what Rachel Wallace says in the previous post about the importance of making a record of a funeral.

The coffin, in case you wonder, was handmade by Jimmy with expert help. 

At the weekend we’ll post another film made by Jimmy about life, death, ageing and more. He’s a Bafta winner, is Jimmy. It shows. 

Below is some text from the BeyondGoodbye.co.uk website.

Joshua Harris-Edmonds 
23 May 1988 — 16 January 2011
Forever in our hearts and minds

On 16th January 2011 Joshua Amos Harris Edmonds was tragically killed in a road traffic accident in Vietnam. Joshua was 3 months into a trip of a lifetime travelling across South East Asia. 

He was 22 years of age.  

A life cut short, but a life lived well.

In honour of our Josh and as a memorial to his life, Beyond Goodybe, the website, will continue Josh’s inspiration on others and offer a place to remember, to pay tribute and share their love for Josh with others. 

This site also houses the book ‘Released’ and the film ‘Beyond Goodbye’, family tributes to our Josh and also perspectives on death and the grieving process. 

If you’d like to get in touch, please do: info@beyondgoodbye.co.uk

Frightfully common

8 November 2011
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Art and death, coffins

The English interior designer David Hicks created the signature look of the Swinging Sixties. Those strong colours and geometrical designs — they’re his. 

He seems to have been a man at ease with his mortality, a mindset informed, perhaps, by his daily ritual of chain-smoking cigarettes. At his flat in Albany he “created a crimson drawing room and bedroom with a bed lavishly draped in red damask, which he described as ‘a bed to receive one’s doctors from, a bed to die in.’ 

“Hicks did not die in that bed but rather in his bed at the Grove, surrounded by beloved objects and gazing at the landscape. He orchestrated his own funeral, spelling out the arrangements in a book that he made called “The Demise of David Hicks.” His coffin was carried to its final resting place on an ivy-covered trailer attached to Hicks’s Range Rover. He was wearing a David Hicks tie, and his pockets were stuffed with his obituaries and press clippings.” [Source] 

Hicks designed his own coffin, of course. When lung cancer claimed him at the age of 69 he lay in state in it, at his own instructions, in his garden pavilion. Made of sycamore, it was, at his command, handle-less.

Coffin handles, he said, are “frightfully common”. 

This ae nighte

31 October 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Art and death, dying

Halloween has deep roots. Through All Hallows Eve to the old pagan night of Samhain, each marks the time of year when the veil between this world and the next are at their thinnest and the dead and the living can most easily meet and mingle.

 As this blog’s contribution to the celebrations, here is the Lyke Wake Dirge in probably the most famous of recent versions performed by Pentangle.

It’s a very old Yorkshire dialect song for the time spent sitting with the corpse (Lyke is an old word for corpse – think Lych Gate). It describes the journey the soul makes and the challenges it meets on the way. In a way it’s a set of instructions but, if there’s a lesson, it is that charity in life is the best way to ensure safe passage in death.

 Here are the original lyrics, with a translation:

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every nighte and alle,Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule.
When thou from hence away art past,
Every nighte and alle,
To Whinny-muir thou com’st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
Every nighte and alle,
Sit thee down and put them on;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gav’st nane
Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Whinny-muir whence thou may’st pass,
Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gav’st silver and gold,
Every nighte and alle,
At t’ Brig o’ Dread thou’lt find foothold,
And Christe receive thy saule.

But if silver and gold thou never gav’st nane,
Every nighte and alle,
Down thou tumblest to Hell flame,
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Brig o’ Dread whence thou may’st pass,
Every nighte and alle,
To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gav’st meat or drink,
Every nighte and alle,
The fire sall never make thee shrink;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If meat or drink thou ne’er gav’st nane,
Every nighte and alle,
The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;And Christe receive thy saule.

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule.

 On this night, on this night,
Every night and all,Hearth and house and candle-light,
And Christ receive your soul.
When from here away you pass
Every night and all,
To Thorny Moor you come at last;
And Christ receive your soul. 

If ever you gave hose and shoes,
Every night and all,
Sit then down and put them on;
And Christ receive your soul.

But if hose and shoes you gave none
Every night and all,
The thorns shall prick you to the bare bone;
And Christ receive your soul.

From Thorny Moor then you may pass,
Every night and all,
To Bridge of Dread you come at last;
And Christ receive your soul.

If ever you gave silver and gold,
Every night and all,
At Bridge of Dread you’ll find foothold,
And Christ receive your soul.

But if silver and gold you gave none
Every night and all:
You’ll tumble down into Hell’s flames
And Christ receive your soul.

From Bridge of Dread then you may pass,
Every night and all,
To Purgatory fire you’ll come at last;
And Christ receive your soul.

If ever you gave meat or drink,
Every night and all,
The fire will never make you shrink;
And Christ receive your soul.

But if meat or drink you gave none,
Every night and all,
The fire will burn you to the bare bone;
And Christ receive your soul

On this night, on this night,
Every night and all,
Hearth and house and candle-light,
And Christ receive your soul.

 With thanks to Jeff Duntemann for his translation of the Dirge. If you are interested in reading more, his page is here.

Funnybones

28 October 2011
Charles
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Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to dead bodies, Books, Ossuary

Posted by Vale

What is it with this fascination with bones and skeletons?

Faced with a pile of them and one man plasters into the walls and cornices, another creates chandeliers and shields while elsewhere anonymous skulls are given names, cleaned, polished and even appealed to for information.

Bones seem to be the acceptable face of death. Tangible reminders of course; a frisson of the macabre certainly, but once the Yorick lesson has been learned –  you might think there would be little more to add.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that.

Except that there always is. Faye Dowling has published a wonderful Book of Skulls that, through images, explores our continuing fascination:

And, for the ossuary lovers, Thames and Hudson are publishing Empire of Death.

It brings together the world’s most important charnel sites, ranging from the crypts of the Capuchin monasteries in Italy and the skull-encrusted columns of the ossuary in Évora in Portugal, to the strange tomb of a 1960s wealthy Peruvian nobleman decorated with the exhumed skeletons of his Spanish ancestors.

And our old friend St Pancras is on the cover too.

Welcome to Capela dos Ossos

25 October 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Art and death, Ossuary

Posted by Vale

An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains.

These are photographs of the ossuary in the ancient town of Evora in Portugal. It is estimated to contains the remains of over 5000 people as well as two mummified corpses.

More information about the chapel and photographs here.

The chaos of meaning

21 October 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Art and death, ashes, memorialisation

We have just received the following press release: 

In early 2011, Jimmy Edmonds’ son Joshua was killed in a road accident in SE Asia. 

RELEASED is a photographic essay and a personal response to the tragedy of his son’s death. Intended for publication both as an exhibition and as a book, the project features a mix of Edmonds’ powerful photography and personal poetry.

The title refers to the label on the container holding Joshua’s ashes on which the word “released” appeared.  This becomes the starting point for a personal journey in which Edmonds navigates a way through his own grief to an exploration of photography itself. The “chaos of meaning” he finds lying at the heart of photography mirrors almost exactly his own confusion surrounding the loss of his son.

The result is a work of remarkable depth and drama. 

As indeed it is. Here’s what one of our regular reader, James Showers, thought of it: “I literally gasped at the way you worked with the ashes – treating them with such delicacy, as beauty not as leftovers.”

You can read the entire book fullscreen online here.  You can find the Facebook page here.

Isle of the Dead

17 October 2011
Charles
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Categories: Art and death

This concert will be a fantastic interweaving of myth, music and magic telling the story of the ancient Sumerian Goddess Inanna and her descent to the underworld to aid her suffering sister Erešhkigal. In leaving her realm of the heavens to face the darkness of the underworldfrom which there is no return, she faces death, sacrifice and a loss of innocence. It mirrors our own personal journeys of life into loss, suffering and shadow, but ultimately wisdom, redemption and mastery. In creating the myth as theatre the audience is invited to invoke their own stories and experiences.

Jane Flood has been a professional storyteller since 1990 and has a word hoard of over 300 traditional stories. She was commissioned to craft the myth of Inanna by the Festival at the Edge in 2002 and has been developing it ever since. She has collected and performed stories all over the world including Nepal, East Africa and South America. Her present work is mostly landscape based and is exploring the connections between people and place and the stories we tell that make sense of how and where we live.

bellAcappella is one of the leading chamber choirs of the South West and has received rave reviews for its performances since its founding in 2008. Singing songs from Georgian polyphony to gospel, their heartfelt enthusiasm and dedication to excellence continues to enthral new audiences. Led by Director Basira Ward they will be performing some sumptuous modern masterpieces by Dubra, Tavener and Whitacre alongside Baroque classic, Purcell’s funeral sentences.

Quatre Voix is a vocal quartet of professional singers who will sing early renaissance polyphony.

Sponsored by green fuse Funeral Directors, 7 High Street, Totnes tel: 01803 840779

ICAHD is a non-violent, direct-action organisation established in 1997 to resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories.

Euphemisms 1: Officials and officiousness

21 September 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death

Posted by Vale

Euphemisms are all about not facing up to reality. We like to think we use them for good reasons, but they have a darker side too. This poem, written by Harold Pinter in 1997, uses one of the words we often shy from, yet it too is a euphemism. It was written in the year that his own father died and I think that, writing about death in this way, he was describing something of his own experience of the way that deaths are managed and, in the midst of the form filling, the way that language can help us hide from what has happened and what we have both done and not done.

Because it is Pinter, of course, I think he was also making a point about the way that being ’official’, can lead to the denial of both feelings and humanity at many different levels. Of course the poem is an extreme version of unfeeling officiousness but does it remind you at all of the way that some funeral businesses handle their first contact with families?

Death (Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953)

Where was the dead body found? Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead? Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body Did you close both its eyes Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

The poem was silkscreen printed on 7 hospital bedsheets and 7 forensic dissection tables surrounded by the smell of lysol.

First Darkness

14 September 2011
Charles
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Categories: Art and death

Posted by Denise Wyllie and Clare O Hagan

The two Artists and filmmakers Wyllie O Hagan (Denise Wyllie and Clare O Hagan) presented their multi-award winning film First Darkness at the Inaugural London Funeral Exhibition 2011 held at Woodland Burial Parks in Epping Forest on the outskirts of London this Summer.

The film forms part of an art exhibition consisting of a moving, beautiful short film, an art book plus a series of landscape pictures. The artists exhibit First Darkness outside of the usual gallery settings in more intimate settings seen by wider audiences. The short 8 minute film is available to be screened at venues such at home or included in a memorial service/ celebration of life event. An accompanying art exhibition is also available for loan or sale.

Artworks make a unique and lasting commemorative gift and the artists have original prints and paintings for sale. People wishing to purchase an artwork to share with their family for a very personal inheritance, contact Clare and Denise via their website.

Denise Wyllie and Clare O Hagan have been able to convey their personal experiences of loss and the love of Nature in this sensitive and powerful group of artworks. The film gives people a way of understanding and coming to terms with the loss of a loved one.

Clare O Hagan says “our original documentary film ‘First Darkness’ recreates the journey of an artist reconnecting with life after the death of her friend.” Denise Wyllie adds, “We see the sombre mood of the artist depicted in her initial art prints and how this darkness gives way to a ‘new Spring of hope’ as the delicate reviving colours of Nature wash over her paintings.”

Here is an excerpt of the First Darkness film:

First Darkness has been screened at important international film festivals such as Monaco, at the Angel Film Awards, winning Best Art Film and Best Original Music. It was also ‘In Competition’ at the Brazilian ‘Its All True’ documentary film festival in Rio de Janeiro  and Sao Paulo and achieved ‘Special Mention’ at the Asolo Art Film Festival, Italy.

Closer to home there was less red carpet but as much interest and enthusiasm for the screenings at the Inaugural London Funeral Exhibition 2011. The audience at this event were experts in many aspects of funeral management as opposed to film or art critics. The post screening discussions that followed were just as lively and successful, with the audiences covering many new aspects of the issues raised by the film.

After the screenings of the film Clare O Hagan and Denise Wyllie rode with the Paul Foyle’s Ostler Carriage Company who took them for a ride on his rig through the forest. They saw from this high vantage point many of the participating organisations. They rode past Reverend Paul Sinclair on his motorcycle hearse whilst a brass band played to visitors.  Diverse and intriguing exhibition stands lined the route through the forest including Winter Willow, Ecoffins,  information on civil funerals and photographic services by Priscilla Etienne of Funeography.   Clare and Denise waved at fellow participants, Charles Cowling from the Good Funeral Guide and Brian Jenner from the Six Feet Under Convention.

Clare tells the story, ‘In the forest’s late afternoon sunshine, our day’s business being concluded, the coachman, from the Ostler Carriage Company, Paul Foyle, took us for a ride on his rig through the forest. Sitting up high at the front beside Paul Foyle looking over the backs of the two strong white horses you could see a landscape full of light and shade within the forest.

Clare continues, ‘The sun filtered through the trees and fell onto the horses backs, their livery shimmering and tinkling in time to the beat of their hooves. I looked to my side and saw the handsome coachman, resplendent in his cape coat and bowler hat working his horses. We dipped our heads in unison as we pass under low hanging branches. I see Denise smiling broadly. In a forest filled with light, full of joy, my spirit soars and runs with the horses. Then it happened, that fleeting, elusive “being in the moment” moment. Who’d have thought that a screening of our film First Darkness at Epping Woodland Burial Park would have been so exhilarating, so life affirming?

So when I, giddy with excitement, heard the coachman say, “steady on gal”, I asked if he was talking to me or the horses? It wasn’t the horses he was talking to!’

Wyllie O Hagan wish to extend their thanks to the events organisers – Woodland Burial Parks Groups at Epping Forest – for staging the Inaugural London Funeral Exhibition and to congratulate them on a such successful event.

Wyllie O Hagan: http://www.wyllieohagan.com/

Information about the London Funeral Exhibition 2011 http://www.woodlandburialparks.co.uk/London-Funeral-Exhibition-2011.ice