Cemetery Projects in process

One door closes, another opens.

• The show is over - here is a video of the event: Click to see the Compost Cemetery Show
• The new project: designing an interactive map of forgotten cemeteries in SF/NY city proper
• In process: Working with a land trust to support Landscape Art Projects on Cemetery Land

Hope to see you again soon in the cemetery. 

Invitation to Compost Cemetery Show on July 23

We are excited to announce a guest performance at 4 pm by Louie Jenkins: Louie is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chichester where she specializes in Solo Performance, Performance Writing and Devising, Applied and Interventionist Theatre. Louie’s main research interests are in autobiographical solo performance with specific reference to illness, dying, mortality and grief - exploring biopolitics and Lacanian notions of trauma and death.

update: interactive map of cemetery and installation spaces

click for printable map: cemetery map of installation spaces


play movie to see the installation spaces

Tree Compost

Trees are celebrated symbols of hope, sustenance, and life. But as they get cut down and die, trees represent the passage from life into death. This week at the cemetery a strong wind pulled down a tree, Anna painted a tree stump in memory of a tree, and her son Matthew built a teepee out of cut branches and recycled wooden poles.

Hillary with the Pitchfork at the Cemetery

The New San Francisco "Cemetery" Memorial Garden Petition

The New San Francisco "Cemetery" Memorial Garden Petition

Bring back crematoriums and cemeteries to San Francisco

Isn't it time we change SF Law and bring burials and cremation back to the City. With new advances in composting methods, and reusing the energy from crematoriums, SF should revamp their policies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-12388011

http://malibucompost.com/

http://infinityburialproject.com/kit

In California, the coffin must be covered by a minimum of 18 inches of dirt and turf, with new advances in compost technology... perhaps these requirements will change, this will mean more people could be buried per cubic foot.

SF should change their laws to allow for burial in the city. Not only would it create spaces for remembrance and reflection, it would also offer needed monetary resources for art, garden, landscape, and people.

What are we waiting for?

Breakfast at the Cemetery Feb. 19

Come Join Us for Breakfast at the Cemetery Next Saturday on:

Feb.19:

Bring your ideas and coffee 10 am-12 noon

We have cleared a gestural, curving piece of landscape..

Now we are ready for the sculptural spiraling movements of expression..

The places for memorial and rememberance

Meetup: 1695 18th street (note: different than usual meetup place)

Call for Submissions: Cemetery Art Show

Call for Art Submissions
Deadline: June 23, 2011
G2 Art Gallery is accepting submissions for the 2011 Compost: Cemetery Concept exhibition. We will be hosting indoor and outdoor shows for artists. The show will run for 8 weeks. We are seeking a portfolio of original artwork that is appropriate for a columbarium, cemetery, funeral, memorial, and/or gallery setting.
Eligibility: All 2- and 3-dimensional media are acceptable – painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, mixed media, light, dance, performance, written word, and installation for both indoor and outdoor spaces.
How to Enter: Submit digital images or video/audio of your work, image list (detailing media and artwork sizes), resume/cv and artist’s statement to: the facebook public event page.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=179985498692698
An artist statement/bio and price list will be displayed accompanying the exhibit.
Submit work that is available or not available for exhibition – sold or unavailable works are accepted on the online gallery. The application deadline is June 23, 2011.
Acceptance: Artists will be notified of acceptance to the physical show in the G2 Gallery by July 7, 2011. The number of artists and amount of work accepted into the exhibition will depend on media, size, and number of entries.
Commission: The artist will receive 80% on any sales of artworks sold through the physical gallery.
Artwork Delivery: Artists are responsible for packing/delivery/shipping and retrieval of works from the Gallery. Delivered works MUST be framed, ready to hang and/or exhibition ready. Artwork must arrive at the gallery no later than five days before the scheduled opening of the show.

Starting the labyrinth

Sometimes I feel like I am digging my own grave

One thing leads to another: First it was the family cemetery, then the memorial garden and art show, now I find myself wandering around my neighborhood looking for cemetery stones recycled in the local mason work. Bodies recycled as compost, cemetery stones recycled for stairs in the local park...

Laugh at father death, but all this obsession is bringing me closer to my own...

SF General lies on top of a cemetery

Stone found near McKinley Park

Sometimes I feel like I am digging my own grave

We are living on top of a cemetery.

San Francisco:
We are living on top of a cemetery.

Sound Organ in the Marina

http://slideshow.exploratorium.edu/soundslides/driven/1/publish_to_web/index.html

Buena Vista Park:

http://www.sanfranciscocemeteries.com/buena_vista_a.html


Wonder what it would be like to scan SF with a detector:
http://www.okm-emirates.com/Rover_class.htm

Interesting Radio shows on home funerals.

Yesterday driving to see my friend's art show, I heard a great radio show about Home Funerals on KQED at the same time Nona heard a radio show on NPR....

 Here are the links:

For a more human show:
http://www.soundprint.org/radio/display_show/ID/798/name/Death+Comes+Home KQED

For a more cerebral show:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103668142 on NPR

Cemetery Orientation Day Success and next meeting Jan. 29, 2011

1. Thanks to all who came to the orientation day: Chris, Nona, Carrie, Camila, Mala, Phoebe
2. We have forged a new path down the jungle garden
3. Looking for burlap bags and/or fabric for the next meeting on Saturday January 29.
4. If anyone has an electric hedge trimmer, this would also be helpful.
5. Bring memory stones: to add to the collection (The color theme is granite rock or other natural material, with black or etched in lettering.)
6. Bless

Project 0: Help build the first modern San Francisco Cemetery 2011

“At one time, there were probably more than 200,000 graves dug - some more than once - for each of the deceased residents in San Francisco before the year 1900. This was when the Board of Supervisors voted to stop all burials in The City and County of San Francisco, California. The exact number of the interred citizens within The City boundaries is hard to figure because most of the records were destroyed in the fires that resulted from the Great Earthquake of April 18, 1906.” *

Today we announce an opportunity to bring back a cemetery to SF.

There use to be numerous locations throughout The City where different religious groups and organizations bought land for the interment of members. There were Catholic, Chinese, Jewish and Protestant Cemeteries covering many neighborhoods of San Francisco.

This new cemetery will be located in the area between Arkansas Street and Wisconsin Street, with a future entrance at 19^th street on Potrero Hill, SF.

It will be non-denominational, all-inclusive, memorializing all mammals.

Currently it is illegal to actually cremate anyone in town or bury anyone in the ground in San Francisco, California. The only exception today is the San Francisco National Cemetery/The Presidio.

Therefore this cemetery will be conceptual in nature, a memorial garden for the local community to reflect and remember.

Please come to our ground breaking meeting:

We're a volunteer-run nonprofit: we rely heavily on people

like you to make the memorial garden what it will be. So we'd like to invite you to our New Volunteer Orientation Day on Saturday January 22 from

10am-12pm. We will meet every Saturday, so if you can't make it this weekend come next.

If you've never volunteered at a garden before, or even if you have,

please come by: we will give a tour of the garden and explain our

mission. After that you can tackle a small project from the list:

weeding, pruning, brainstorming…

Wear sturdy shoes, and bring gloves, if you have them. We provide the tools, beverages and expertise!

Hope to see you there,

The Cemetery Project Team

*For more information and a great page showing you where to find old cemeteries in SF log on to:

http://www.sanfranciscocemeteries.com/

Body Disposal as Landscape Art

This is the social sculpture part.

When thinking about our current cemetery practice and its environmental impact on the earth, one realizes the future needs a new solution…

If we could change our cemetery practice to benefit the future generations, 
what would that look like?

More open space, money for large landscape art projects, gardens; orchards the ideas are limitless…

One of the ideas I’ve come up with is burying the dead in the form of a large spiral labyrinth.

Utilizing GPS, we can now mark graves without stones, so the configurations can change.

Here are a few sketches: using words… stories… epitaphs… but the words could be vegetables, fruit trees, solar lights (fading in an out), or just ground cover eroding over time…

"Compost to compost" ak "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust".

com·post

  a look at the definition explains ….

–noun

1.

a mixture of various decaying organic substances, as dead leaves or animal remains, used for fertilizing soil.

2.

a composition; compound.

Thinking of my evitable demise… and the problem left for my daughter to dispose of my body… I wonder, can I make it easier for her?

By becoming useful: compost

By becoming beautiful: a compound

This is the drive for the project. To create a “cemetery” of compost feeding an orchard, the orchard in turn feeding the living.

To create a beautiful compound to rest and restore the living.

Step 1: Pick out a piece of your property that would be appropriate.

1/4 of an acre lot in Bolinas @ 0 Pine Road

Nona Caspers and I went on a trip to Bolinas, in search of a cemetery, it was a rainy and stormy day.

This is what we found for sale:

1/4 of an acre, with an ocean view for  22,000.

Positives: It is only a 1 hour car trip from SF, amazingly we didn't fall of the cliff. The windy road is somewhat like a labyrinth, as you descend into Bolinas. Places to walk along the ocean for contemplation.

Drawbacks: No sleeping over, no building a house, may lose some of the funeral attendees on the windy roads, car sick, vexatious litigant neighbors.

Conclusion: still looking, any ideas out there please comment

How to start a family/friend cemetery

1. 1    Pick out a piece of your property that would be appropriate. 

Remember such things as flooding and access to the property.

• Property in a valley, is ideal for the emotion of decent and when leaving ascent
• An area for contemplation, forest, grove
• An area for interaction, stones for piles, gardening, fruit picking
• 2
  Check with your local county clerks office for any special rules or permits that may be required.
• 3
  Survey the spot of land you've picked out. In some states you are required to put a fence around the place you're dedicating. So, be sure to check with your county officials.
• link for permit info in CA to bury on your land
• 4
  
  Map to cemetery location
  File a Certificate of Declaration of Dedication of Land with your County Clerk. You (the land owner) can file the info and complete the survey yourself. There's no need to hire someone to do this for you.
• 5
  
  Layout of burial plots
  When you file your dedication you will need to take a map to the plot. You will also need to make a diagram of how you will lay out the cemetery. Then, in the future, you will need to keep good records as to who is buried there and file those with the County Clerk for record. GPS is now an option.

• 6
  There are regulations as to how close your cemetery can be located to a city or municipality. This depends on the size of municipality/city. link for more info in CA to bury on your land

The Beginning

The idea for this blog was inspired due to my dad's death this summer and the subsequent writing of living wills, health directives, etc. for my own...
I have done a bit of body disposal research and will be working on a cemetery project, which will be documented.



Here is the link for the submission form for the event:


https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3KEFsBkFU6GMTY1Y2RlNzctNjE5ZC00YWI5LTk0OWItYTBiNDNkZmVhMmU2&hl=en