This is an invitation to participate in an exhibition at Barrister’s called Hydriotaphia: Artists Design Their Own Funeral Urns. The exhibit is set for February 12 thru March 26, 2005. You may, of course, literally, make an urn or an “urn”—freestanding or for the wall, you can paint or assemble your urn on a surface, or depict it in any other way you choose—in any medium. The work can be brought to the gallery as soon as you complete it, but no later than the last week of January. There are only a limited number of pedestals available in the gallery, so please help solve any special exhibition problems your piece may present. Dan Teague and Iwill “curate”—but only in the original, and more appropriate, ecclesiastical sense of the term.

Even though this invitation is self-explanatory, as always, when I set out to organize an extensive annual group show, I feel the need to explain the impetus for the idea and theme for that exhibit…with the expectation that, as an artist, you will be able to re-imagine that idea

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In 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, published an essay entitled “Hydriotaphia, Urne Buriall, or A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes lately found in Norfolk.” In 1656, Browne, a well-known,writer, scholar, antiquarian and physician practicing in nearby Norwich, was presented with one of the 40 or so excavated funeral urns for his inspection. The resulting “Discourse,” it is agreed, is one of the finest prose meditations on the fugitiveness of life, the utter certainty of death, and our overwhelming fear of oblivion written in any language.

When I say “written,” I’m using that term loosely: more architectural terms would be appropriate—the essay is built, constructed, erected. Literary critics invariably, but feebly, describe his convoluted and dense style as “baroque”—it is simultaneously Gothic, Romantic, Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Surreal, Modern, and Post-Modern. The only thing it is not is Minimalist: where one or two words would do, Browne finds five, and if there are only four available, he invents one out of Greek or Latin. The style is so remarkable that it has been suggested that he dipped into the opium in his medicine cabinet—that would certainly explain why hallucinatory-brained men like Coleridge, Poe and Borges admired Browne’s writing so much.

The governing idea in “Hydriotaphia,” that all the burial customs and funeral ceremonies he surveys of, among others, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans,up to his own time, are all merely examples of our vain, pointless efforts to immortalizethe identity of the dead. The tone of the essay is elegiac, solemn, melancholic, and very Christian: when he contemplates the urn and its contents before him, with its ashes, bits of charred bones, and a few eroded, personal objects, he is struck by the irony that despite the efforts to preserve the identity of the cremated person,there is no way to know anything about the character or personality of the interred. (The irony is compounded, inadvertently, because Browne thought the urns were Roman, when in fact they were Saxon.) Browne says there are many seemingly unanswerable questions about antiquity that we can make intelligent guesses about, even as to when the interred died, but not about the actual identity or quality of the person reduced to those ashes and bones:

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid among women, though puzzling Questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these Ossuaries entered the famous Nations of the dead, and slept with Princes and Consellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above Antiquarism.

Herostratas lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it….Who knows whether the best of men be known? Or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time?

Urne-Buriall, V

Browne’s point, of course, is that God has promised immortality for our resurrected souls, He has not promised immortality for us, for our identities: pyramids turn to sand, monuments and mausoleums to dust, and inscriptions on urns erode—all are displays of human vain-glory. Browne, a neo-Platonical, alchemical, meta-physical Christian, says we live eternally by the “pure flame” (U-B, V) within us, not by the huge ceremonial fire that cremates us. Browne implies an analogy: “…the common forms [of the urns] with necks was a proper figure, making our last bed like our first….” (U-B, II) The human body is anearthen vessel created by God the Potter-Artist withinwhich the soulis contained—the funeral urn is an earthen vessel created by a nameless potter in which our ashes are contained; the earthen body releases the human soul into immortality—the funeral urn mixes the ashes with dirt—anonymous, no fame, no immortality. Worse yet, we could be “knav’d out of our graves, to have our sculs made drinking-bowls, and our bones turned into pipes.” (U-B, III)

Who better than an Earthly Artist then to design his own funeral urn to insure his own immortality? If it is possible to make the metaphorical argument that every significant work of art is a kind of funeral urn, (because the artists have “buried themselves” in their workor “put everything of themselves” into their work), it would then follow that the quintessential artist’s creation would be his own funeral urn or “urn.” By the choice of shape, material, design, the personal sentiments outside the urn and the personal things mixed in with their ashes, etc., etc., an artist could create something that would be an eternal time capsule, a hieroglyph decipherable for all eternity speaking volumes in behalf of their ashes—how and where they grew up, why they became artists, who they hated and loved, what was important to them, if they voted for Kerry or Bush or Nader.

This is a grave undertaking, but I know your good humor will shine through the gloom.

Let’s not forget the “fun” in funeral.

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FYI--RIP

MODERN CREMATION

“The process of reducing human remains to its basic elements in the form of bone fragments through flame, heat, and vaporization.”

History

With the exception for periods of plague and the battlefield, it should not be surprising that the advent of various versions of Doctor Browne’s Christianitybrought a halt, for two thousand years, to the common disposition of bodies on top of blazing wooden funeral pyres which left nothing but coals—a process as old as the early Stone Age. It was a symbolic way of honoring the dead and also a reassuring way of being certain that embodied spirits would not come back to haunt the living. While “inhumation,” corpse embalming, and coffin and mausoleum burial remains the overwhelming funeral preference, in relatively modern times interest in cremation has been rekindled. (Unquestionably, the Nazi’s use of cremation ovens cast a heavy pall on this resurgent interest.)

The Brunetti cremation chamber, which made use of an even heat that kept flames away from the body, was first shown at the 1873 Vienna Exposition. Almost immediately cremation societies developed in the United States and Europe. By 1875-76, the first crematories were established in England, Germany, and the United States (Pennsylvania).

The significant thing about cremation is that one avoids the Big Death Business—in New Orleans, that’s Stewart Enterprises.

Process

Presently, the body is first placed in either a cardboard or wooden casket made specifically for cremation. An alternative is a cardboard box which fits into a “rental” traditional-looking casket, which is removed just before cremation.

The “retort,” the chamber within the cremation oven, is lined with heat retaining bricks. The propane or natural gas burns at between 1400° F to 2100º F. After two hours all that remains are ashes and scorched bone.One pound of live weight yields one cubic inch of ash; for example, a 175lb person would fill an urn 11" high and about 8" in circumference—or a shoebox.Everything is swept into a grinder leavingthe final ash and tiny bone fragments (collectively called, “cremins”—although many reject the ugly term) representing about 5% of the original body weight. The chemistry of the ashes includes mostly Phosphate, Calcium, Sulfate, Potassium, and Chloride, Carbonate, and Oxide compounds.

Statistics

In 1913, in the U. S., 52 crematories assisted in over 10,000 cremations; in 2003, hundreds more crematories facilitated 693,742 cremations—28.63% of the total deaths. By 2010, it is projected the number of Americans choosing cremation will rise to 35.07%, and by 2030, 50%. In Canada, it was close to 50% in 2000. In 2002, there were 5,135 cremations in Louisiana, 12.13% of all the deaths; Alabama was the lowest, 4.44%, Nevada, the highest, 60.69%.

Disposition of the ashes

Once the ashes are collected in the urn, there are various options. The most recent analysis available from the Cremation Association of North America is from 1996, when there were a total of 492,434 cremations. (78% placed the remains in urns.)

1. Delivered to the cemetery, 40.7%. Of these, 25.6% (51,308) the urns and their contents were placed in the cemetery’s columbarium (“dove cote”—a wall with niches); the rest were either buried or scattered in a designated area of the cemetery.

2. Taken home, 35.8%--(for the mantle or closet)

3. Scattered, 17.8%--(land, 27%, water,72.7%)

4. Not picked up, 5.7%--(the crematorium is legally responsible to store them)

Of this 1996 group, the mean age of the cremated was 69.4 years old; Female 51.9%, Male 48.1%; 88% of total were Caucasians, 3% Hispanics, 3% Asians; 6% African Americans. As to religious affiliation: 58% Protestant, 26% Catholic, 11% Buddhist, 3% Jewish, 2% Hindu. Only Islam, Zoroastrianism, Orthodox Judaism, and Russian and Greek Orthodoxy prohibit cremation; the Catholic Church requires the urn to be buried.

Of this same group, 67% had no religious memorial service before cremation, 56.3% had no service afterwards; only 24% had ceremonies before and after the cremation.

Here are some examples of additional options you can request of your friends:

The Eternally Yours Company will paint your ashes into a painting, cost, $350-$550,—they are probably more trustworthy than your fellow painters who might put you in a clown painting.

Ed Headrick (d. 2003), the inventor of the Frisbee, had himself molded into one.

Marvel Comics editor and creator of Capt. America, Mark Gruenwald (d. 1996) had his ashes mixed into the ink used to print a special edition poster of the “Squadron Supreme.”

Reverend Mad Jack, a tattoo artist who worked out of Chicago, mixed ashes into his ink to make memorial tattoos.

Celestis, a Soviet Corporation, will send one gram ($995) or seven grams ($5,300) of ashes into low orbit. (Gene Roddenberry and Timothy Leary were put into space orbit in September, 1999 aboard a U. S. satellite. NASA put one once of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes onto the Lunar Prospector which crashed into the moon on July 31, 1999. He is, therefore, the first human to be buried on another planet.)

Life Gems Company will extract the carbon from your ashes and compress a diamond (.25 carat is about $2,000—a maximum of 3 carats is possible.)

Eternal Reefs Company will mix your ashes with cement and add you to a “community reef” off the coast of Georgia ($1,500 to $5,000).

Memory Glass makes personalized, hand-blown glass sculptureand paperweights with your ashes suspended within.

A search will reveal that there are companies prepared to make agricultural implements, ritual objects, and necklaces out of your ashes—one of my favorites is a teddy bear with a Velcro pocket in its back to hold “a velveteen bag with your remains.” There are companies which sell urns made of every possible material, from split bamboo, cardboard, wood, marble to bronze.Some are biodegradable and ideal for forest burial.

Andy P. Antippas

Barrister’s Gallery

Some of the more amusing urn peddling sites, in addition to the companies listed above:

Re: Sir Thomas and “Urne-Buriall”

The complete essay is readily available on line.

For example:

On-line essays on Browne I browsed:

Kevin Faulkner. “Scintillae marginila: Sparkling margins….” (2002)

Library.wellcome.ac/assets/wtl040148.rtf

“Hydriotaphia or Urne-Buriall.”

Adam H. Kitzes. “Hydriotaphia, ‘The sensible rhetoric of the dead’” (2002)

“Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial”