Out of Body in the Cemetery

If I were to guess, this might have happened around 2005. No matter, as Mark Twain said, my memory’s so good I can remember things whether they happened or not.


Anyway, I was photographing in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, which is a mile or so north of that infernal “Inner Harbor” tourist trap area (all the best things are north of there, except maybe Loudon Park Cemetery). My friend John and I spent a summer Saturday in Greenmount, walking the grounds, photographing the monuments (like the one you see here at left), and reminiscing (we went to engineering school together at Penn State).

At one point we noticed a tall thin man dressed in a suit walking around. He may have been in his late 60’s; the suit was a bit ragged and out-of-date. Besides us, he appeared to be the only visitor there. We saw him now and again, and paid him no mind until at one point he strolled over and asked us a question. He said, “You gentlemen seem to be familiar with this place. I’m trying to find this monument--have you seen it?” He held out a small 1940’s-type (crinkle-edged) black and white Instamatic photo of some tombstones and monuments surrounded by small trees.

We both said no, and I added, “You know, those trees must be so large by now that I’m sure the area you’re looking for looks nothing like this photograph.” He nodded and just sort of drifted off. We went about our business and about a half hour later he rejoined us. This time he asked us if we were aware that some famous artists were buried here. He insisted on showing us, so we followed.

Although there are many famous people buried at Greenmount (John Wilkes Booth, Sidney Lanier, Johns Hopkins), the only famous artist I was aware of was William Henry Rinehart. The photograph you see at top is a rendition of Rinehart's sculpture "Sleeping Children," which rests atop a grave in Greenmount. The thin man walked us to a hilly area in the northwest section of the cemetery and showed us two monuments, neither of which was Rinehart's. He told us the artist’s names and what they famously accomplished. Anxious to continue our photographing, John and I thanked him and excused ourselves.To tell the truth, I remember thinking that I never heard of the people he mentioned so his comments made little impact on me. Being a true guy, sometimes my profound inner shallowness just takes over.

The image you see at right is a detail of the bronze cast of Rinehart's sculpture "Endymion," which is mounted on his own tomb near the main entrance of the cemetery. The subject, a shepherd boy holding a flute, was taken from classical mythology. The youth had been so beautiful that Selene, the moon goddess, fell in love with him and bore fifty daughters. Subsequently, the supreme god Zeus granted the shepherd both eternal youth and eternal sleep.

So about an hour later, as we walked through the cemetery toward the gatehouse to leave, we passed a small car parked at the side of the road. There was no one in the driver’s seat, but the thin man was sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. I though this odd and mentioned it to John. He had no reaction, but then, John sees dead people. Maybe I did too.

Statue and Chapel, Greenmount Cemetery

As I thought back on this experience, I decided to do a bit of research for this article, and attempted to find out who those artists were that the thin man went on about. I really don’t remember any of what he said. Strangely, as I search the Web now for artists buried at Greenmount, I only come up with one, William Henry Rinehart—unless you want to count this entry from Wikipedia: “Johnny Eck (1911–1991), American freak show performer born without legs.”  So who was the thin man? And why did he go on so about the "artists?" Why was he later sitting in the car? Did Zeus just not grant him eternal sleep?

I’ve wondered about John’s perspective on our encounter with the thin man, but never asked him. Maybe I’m afraid of his answer. At the time, John participated in psychic sessions at the Edgar Cayce institute, the “Association for Research and Enlightenment” in Virginia Beach. He said he was able to help stranded souls get to “the next level.” John also had out-of-body experiences. If you’ve never had a paranormal experience yourself and people you trust tell you such things, aren’t you more apt to believe them?  Situations like this make one wonder what’s "real" and what’s not. Or is it all real, and we just label things differently in an effort to make sense of them? ...Or to make ourselves feel more comfortable?


Some Related Links:

"Sleeping Children" sculpture by William Henry Rinehart

Greenmount Cemetery Website (one of those few that have creepy music on them!)


Greenmount monuments

Edgar Cayce Books
 
Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment 

Human Hearts Found in Jars in Cemetery

No one ever accused me of being a man of few words. I mean, given a topic, I can empty the dictionary at it. So the point of this blog is that I recently saw a news story about human hearts being found in jars buried in a cemetery in California. Having been to this particular cemetery two years ago, the story brought to mind a few anxieties and musings I thought I’d share with you. We all kind of assume it’s just bodies that are buried in graveyards, you know? Somehow the idea of body parts down there skeeves me out.

The jar story gave me the weird feeling that maybe I walked right over them, which is different from finding voodoo dolls or sacrificed chickens, which I have stumbled across in various graveyards. These objects are just evidence of nocturnal rituals, not body parts. The parts found recently were human hearts in jars--with photographs of young couples pinned to them! What’s up THAT? The specific location was Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA (see news video link below for story). A cemetery maintenance worker noticed the jars sticking half way out of the ground. Homicide was ruled out, but not necessarily religious ritual.

"Police opened up one jar and found a human heart with the photo of a young man and woman pinned to it. Nearby was a second jar with the same contents, but bearing a photo of a different young man and woman. Officers also found partially burned cigars and candles…"

-The Oakland Tribune, 10/22/2010

I remember Holy Cross vividly—it was the final cemetery I hit at the end of a maddening two-day photographic frenzy through the cemeteries of Colma in 2009. The oldest (1887) and largest of the town's cemeteries, it was a fabulous place, with unusual mausoleums and an amazing columbarium. I made the photograph at left of the beautiful marble angel perched atop the gatehouse. If you’re a cemetery photographer, Colma shouldn’t be missed. A city just south of San Francisco where the dead inhabitants outnumber the live ones—1.5 million to 1600, the town's 17 cemeteries comprise approximately 73% of the town's land area! And they call New Orleans the "City of the Dead!"

So did I walk over the hearts in jars when I was there? It freaks me out to think I may have. While it was probably just some practical joke by misguided med students (the hearts had traces of formaldehyde in them), it does conjure up the notion of romantic parting. Romeo and Juliet, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, that sort of thing. Wait-- Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe? In case you didn’t know, baseball great Joe DiMaggio is buried here at Holy Cross. Although he and Marilyn divorced in 1954, his love for her didn’t die when she did. For 20 years, he had a roses placed daily in the vase alongside her crypt at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. It gave me chills to see one of the roses when I visited in the early 1990s. "Marilyn had asked him for roses – she wanted him to leave roses just as William Powell had for Jean Harlow after her untimely death in 1927. It’s funny the things people say, and the things people remember." (from Marilyn & Joe – The Longest Goodbye).


As for hearts entwined, the practice of removing the heart and burying it apart from the rest of the body was really not that unusual in Victorian times (1837 – 1901), a period when the romanticism of Valentine’s Day reached its peak. To officially have one’s body buried in the family plot and one’s heart buried with the spouse satisfied both allegiances with proper Victorian propriety.

I have a friend who used to work at a cemetery and one time he was asked to compare the burial records of a particular family crypt with the actual spaces available.  Apparently, there was a planned burial and the cemetery needed to make sure there was room. So he went down into the underground mausoleum, counted the used and unused crypts, noting the plaques on their covers. Next he went through that family’s interment records. As he read through the death certificates and compared them to the crypt numbers, he came upon something unusual (to him at the time). The notations read something like (and I’m making these names up):  “Crypt 1 - Jacob Smith, 1873,” “Crypt 2 - Lucretia Smith, 1889.” The next one said something like “Crypt 3 – Randolph P.  Smith, 1875; the heart of Marietta Smith, 1878.” The records indicated that Marietta's heart was buried with her husband’s body in his family tomb, while her body was buried in her family’s burial place.

So were the Holy Cross hearts actually a statement of romantic love? It will be interesting to see what the police turn up. Fascinating fact does sometimes make fiction unnecessary, you know?

News video link to original story
Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery website
Marilyn & Joe – The Longest Goodbye

The Gravediggers' Ball

Great name for a story, don't you think? And it's not made up! Left to my own devices, I might have instead titled this blog "Nightmare on Shark Mountain" or something stupid like that. The Gravediggers' Ball is the name given to the annual black-tie fundraiser organized by Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

This past month, Laurel Hill held its sixth annual Gravediggers' Ball, for which hundreds of guests each pay $175 for a night of dinner, dancing, entertainment, and a silent auction. Adding to the festivity, guests are encouraged to dress in Victorian costume, or as their ghoul of choice. As successful as the last five Balls have been, it’s the original (held in 2005) I hold near and dear. While subsequent Balls have been held in a splendid and fancy event hall called the Crystal Tearoom in downtown Philadelphia, the initial one was held in the cemetery itself, on a cold night near Halloween.

I volunteered as a worker at the original ball, where I donated my time and some framed photographs (the image you see at right is my 2010 donation—a winter scene at Laurel Hill). I helped to deliver and lay out the auction items, as well as prepare the space. At the time, holding the Ball in the actual cemetery, at night, near Halloween, seemed a great idea (but then, so did hopping trains when I was a kid). The idea had a certain cache, and drew a large crowd of attendees.

That First Annual Ball could easily have been the Last Annual Ball due to its expense! Being outdoors in a cemetery (where there is a decided shortage of running water, electricity, and other amenities), the event required that tents be set up for the hundreds of guests, the live band, food, drink, and auction items. In addition, sanitary facilities, generators for electricity, and furniture needed to be provided.

All that notwithstanding, what’s cooler than a Halloween party in a cemetery at night? Answer: Nothing! That is, unless you ask the facilities workers, who had to push partygoers’ cars out of the cemetery mud afterward. And therein lies the rub—the elements conspired against us. No one counted on a rainstorm!

There we were, outside on the cemetery grounds at night, dancing, eating, whooping it up, when the torrents of rain began. True, we were covered by massive circus tents, but since it was cold, there were electric heaters going and electric lights throughout. In case I need to draw you a picture, water and electricity don’t mix. Several times the power cut out, leaving the band’s lead singer without amplification. Now if that person had been Linda Perry from the rock band 4 Non Blondes, there wouldn’t have been an issue; however, things repeatedly went dark and quiet as a tomb. The facilities supervisor would fix the problem and the party would continue.

Between blackouts, I found myself chatting with the likes of early-eighteenth century American astronomer David Rittenhouse, who remained in character (and spoke in dialect) the entire evening. At one point I tried to strike up a conversation with some Civil War general, but he went on a rant about Robert E. Lee. Historical re-enactors laughed and danced with zombies and witches, and we all gorged ourselves on decadent deserts. At least I assumed at the time that they were reenactors. Oddly, the individuals I just mentioned (George Meade and David Rittenhouse, both buried at Laurel Hill) failed to appear at the subsequent Balls which were not held in the cemetery… go figure. All in all (for me, anyway), it was truly a magical time.

Laurel Hill’s been a favorite haunt for me since the late 1990s when I “discovered” it. This was about when it received its National Historic Landmark designation and people (in the U.S. anyway) began to pay attention to cemeteries once again, to restore and maintain them, to celebrate cemeteries instead of avoiding them. Since then, I’ve supported Laurel Hill any way I could, as a way of giving back to the cemetery for being (for me) a source of personal and professional growth. I’ve donated my time and art, written about Laurel Hill on my websites, handed out their brochures at art shows in which I’ve participated. Since 1997, I’ve seen considerably increased interest in cemeteries in general, and an astounding display of interest in Laurel Hill itself. Much credit goes to the people who work for Laurel Hill on marketing and promotion. Thanks to them, events like The Gravediggers' Ball, the various tours, theatrical productions, and the annual Champagne Toast to General George Meade are collectively a resounding success. The events help provide much needed income and publicity to maintain the cemetery’s place in our history.

People may wonder if such things are disrespectful to the dead. I believe they are anything but. Whatever we can do to keep our deceased in our memory is respectful. “Fun” events in these cemeteries honor the wishes of the Victorian planners who meant for them to be used for social gatherings, for art appreciation, and for dispelling the gloom of death. At least that’s my view—the disrespected spirits of Titanic survivors interred at Laurel Hill may have thought otherwise and put the water damper on that First Annual Gravediggers' Ball...

Related links of interest:

Laurel Hill Cemetery Website

Laurel Hill on Facebook


Champagne Toast to General George Meade

Cradle to Grave

A few blogs ago I mentioned that I'm in the medical profession. I'm going to pick up on that thread and talk a bit about an experience that relates my day job to my cemetery photography. Totally unlike me, I know. I tend to jump all over the place with these stories, simply because I have the attention span of a gnat.

Sometime in the early 2000s I had an exhibit of my work in a cafe, one of my first public hangings, as it were. The image above was one of the fifteen pieces in the show. I call it "Possessed of the Means," a relatively simple composition, yet it seems to have innate power. A woman phoned me asking to buy it. Obviously I like when people buy my work--it fills me with a sense of awe that people are willing to part with their hard-earned cash in exchange for something I've created. What I'm never prepared for, however, are the stories. People often feel obliged to tell me why they're buying my work.

Sometimes the stories are amusing, like the woman who bought the photograph at right--she emailed me afterwords to tell me she loved it so much she's having it tattooed onto her back! People are always respectful of the work, but very often the stories are quite unsettling. The woman who bought "Possessed of the Means"  hit me with a story that left me speechless. But first, a little background on what I do for a living, to show that my interests actually run from cradle to grave.

I work at a hospital where I (among other things) prepare and prime heart-lung bypass machines for newborn babies. This special kind of bypass called "ECMO" came into being in the 1970s, reaching accepted status as a viable therapy (for certain respiratory ailments) in the late 1980s. ECMO stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, which simply implies an artificial lung, pump, and plastic tubing system outside the body. Vascular access is attained on both the venous and arterial systems (through the neck), blood is siphoned out, oxygenated, then re-infused into the patient.

ECMO is not structurally different from adult heart-lung bypass, whose purpose is to bypass the heart and lungs for a few hours while some surgery is being done, usually on the heart itself. The main difference being that with certain babies with respiratory failure, ECMO is actually the therapy itself. Bypassing the organs for a week or so allows them to heal themselves! Our hospital was the lucky 13th ECMO center in the world, in 1988. Since then, we've saved over 500 babies, achieving a survival rate of about 95%. These are neonates who would've died without ECMO.

Back in 1988, a hospital couldn't actually buy an "ECMO Machine" - they didn't exist. Such things only became commercially available in the mid-1990s after ECMO became more than an "experimental" procedure (and insurance companies would pay for it). It was up to us biomedical engineers to build the devices that would provide the therapy. We built several over the years, often treating three babies at once. We eventually purchased sophisticated new commercially-available ECMO systems, scrapping most of our handmade systems. At one point, the Franklin Institute (in Philadelphia) asked to borrow one for a year-long exhibit on medical innovation. It was quite an honor, as the first heart-lung machine was designed and used at the hospital where I work decades ago by Dr. John and Mary Gibbon.

I never see the patient when I'm working, what with the surgical drapes. My team sets up the bypass system, primes it with blood, assists the surgeon in connection to the patient, then leaves. Nurses manage the case for the duration. I only get called if there's a major problem.  I also don't see the ECMO 'graduates', survivors at 5 or so years of age when their happy parents bring them back for a visit.  My eyes would leak all over the place. There's a reason I didn't train to do direct patient care, and instead became a biomedical engineer: I'd rather work with machines--machines don't cry. I really don't handle emotionally-charged situations very well, especially when they involve children.

So, back to selling my art. After this particular show came down, I made arrangements to meet the buyer and give her the framed "Possessed of the Means" piece she wanted. It was a happy enough occasion, I thought--I was getting a few hundred dollars and she was getting artwork that she desired. We sat at a table in the cafe and she immediately told me that when she originally called me, she listened to the pre-recorded message on my work answering machine, and asked what I had to do with ECMO. I figured she was curious so I began to give her the layman's description of what ECMO is. She stopped me fairly quickly and said, "I know what it is. My twelve-day-old son died on ECMO. The angel in your photograph reminds me of the one on his grave."

What do you say in a situation like that? Selfishly, I hoped her son hadn't been treated at the hospital where I work, but I was at a loss for words. All I could think to do was express my condolences and told her simply that I was glad she found meaning in my work.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

While this week's blog is not about cemetery photography per se, it is about death and photography.

This past month I had two photographs accepted in the Philadelphia Sketch Club’s annual "PHOTOgraphy" competition. While not as big a distinction as my rejection letter from The Weston Gallery in Carmel, CA, it’s a distinction nonetheless. The Sketch Club is America’s oldest continuously operating club for professional artists (since 1860).

The Philadelphia arts community as a whole seems to more accepting of, and even amicable toward photography as an art form than it was, say, a decade ago. The weak economy bodes well for photography too—it’s usually less expensive to buy a photograph than a painting or piece of sculpture! The Sketch Club and various art galleries often have mixed media shows, where photography is hung side-by-side with “real” art (as some might say). Still, Philadelphia is light years away from having a “Photo District” of photography-only galleries, as one finds in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.

The point of the story is that one of the two PHOTOgraphy exhibit judges (it was a juried show), Kyle Cassidy, is a notable photographer whose work I admire. So it was a bit of a thrill to have my photographs chosen, with the possibility of meeting Mr. Cassidy. Perhaps surprisingly, neither of the two pieces I entered in the show were photographs of cemeteries, but both had to do with death. My fellow members of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia are always good-naturedly trying to get me to expand my horizons! The image at the top is a (very Weston-like) film image of dead poinsettia leaves and the other the near-death experience of a skateboarder dropping into a bowl. (The skateboarder image sold.)

I have a couple odd connections to Kyle Cassidy through his two books, “Armed America” and “Who Killed Amanda Palmer.” Aside from the fact that both books have obvious connections with death and that would interest me anyway, I happen to have met the armed guy on the cover of the first book on a pirate cruise a few years ago (his little son’s name is “Uzi”). As for the other book, I’m a fan of both Amanda Palmer and fantasy writer/graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, who is Palmer’s fiancé and penned the book’s text.

Half of the gothic cabaret rock band The Dresden Dolls (remember the hit song, “Coin-Operated Boy” from 2004?), lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer Amanda Palmer is an American performer who has since been enjoying a solo career. I saw The Dresden Dolls perform as the opening act for Nine Inch Nails back in 2005. Hard to believe anyone could adequately fill that bill, but The Dresden Dolls were a perfect choice. The book, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” has a companion musical score by Palmer.

The book, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer – a Collection of Photographic Evidence” is about death, or more specifically, about the many gruesome yet theatrical ways one can die. The book is full of photographs Kyle Cassidy made of Palmer’s “corpse” stuffed in a shopping cart, hanging from a swing set, floating in a lake, stuffed in an oven. Each of the many images is accompanied by a different narrative by Gaiman. My wife Jill bought this for me for Christmas last year.



Although the book is rather on the grim side, Mr. Cassidy was quite good-humored about it when I discussed it with him at the PHOTOgraphy show’s awards reception at the Sketch club last week. We discussed photographic techniques, my work in the exhibit, and his professional association with Palmer and Gaiman. He showed me some of his latest portraiture work on his iPhone, and told me he is working with Palmer on her next project. I wondered if he did this professionally and what he photographed in his spare time. We both laughed as he said, "Old buildings and stuff..." Being a fan of both Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman--and like a true nerd--I brought my (book) copy of “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” and asked the photographer if he would sign it. This he graciously did, after which he took the iPhone picture you see here of himself, me, and my daughter Olivia.

If I were to make an attempt to summarize my ramblings here, I would have to say that no matter what your artistic specialty, it’s healthy to keep your eyes open to other art forms. They can often influence your own cozy little artistic sphere in ways that might surprise you.

Check the links below for sights and sounds related to this article:

Who Killed Amanda Palmer Website

Kyle Cassidy Website

The Dresden Dolls Website

Neil Gaiman Website

The Philadelphia Sketch Club Website

A Cemetery, Only Half-Abandoned

Funny how life is simply a constant realignment of priorities. Time was, I wouldn’t go near a cemetery unless it had obvious and grandiose angel monuments. For ten years, I never read an epitaph. A few years ago I began to appreciate cemeteries for more than just their statues. I had no choice—with all the angels shot, I had to dig deeper into cemetery life, that is, if I wanted to continue spending ridiculous amounts of time in them.

I found myself in a weird state last week, New Jersey, to be exact. I was attending an opening reception for some photographer friends at a gallery in the lovely little town of Haddon Heights, NJ. I always carry a map to scout out cemeteries, and I noticed a small one in the area that I decided to check out on the way home.

Mt. Peace Cemetery in the town of Lawnside coexists with the Home Depot, just across White Horse Pike in South Jersey. I pulled onto its ungated grounds, got out of the car and began walking around the neat and tidy graveyard. Grass was cropped short and piles of old flower pots and cuttings lined the cemetery’s wooded perimeter. Lots of Civil War veterans’ graves with small flags waving, but that was about it—a small, sad little cemetery, as my Grandmother would’ve said. At first glance it seemed to have nothing to recommend it; at second glance I was sure it didn't-- until I noticed the tombstones in the woods.

The two sides of the cemetery not bordered by roads were bordered by a forest, essentially. It was densely wooded with vines encircling the trunks of gnarled trees. Bushes with red berries and wildflowers all but covered - scores of old tombstones! Were people buried in the woods, or did cemetery trees just thrive randomly in the fertile soil amidst these lonely graves?

As I walked back through the thicket over fallen trees and empty beer cans, I quickly realized the dates on the stones were not so old. Most stones were of a soft material which lost its detail to the elements over the past century, but some showed dates as recent as the 1930s. Old Mortality must have been on a bender when he was due to ride through Lawnside. It appeared as though somewhere along the line, the groundskeepers decided it really wasn’t worth maintaining the older section.

The cemetery is twice its apparent size—half in plain view from the street, half hidden under the dark foliage cover. Scores of graves litter the forest. Toppled and sunken headstones are easy to trip over, as many are not obvious poking through the wildflowers and vines. Treading among the stones I couldn’t help wonder why people would lose interest in a cemetery, in their own history. How do you just forget about all these people who died? The untended area was shadowy and packed with ghostly stillness, even as daylight filtered through the leaves above. Massive spider webs stretched from tree to tree and creepy shadows played on headstones. I got an unsettling feeling, something akin to that which Mark Twain described as “when one woke up by accident away in the night, and forgotten sins came flocking out of the secret chambers of the memory.”

To add to the creepiness, there’s an old house in the woods, in a clearing beyond the trees. Imagine having a graveyard in your backyard—or rather, a graveyard as your backyard! Not even a fence to provide a psychological barrier between you and the scores of dead bodies mouldering in the ground. Forget wasting money on Halloween Fright Nights—walking through here at night would do it for me.

A good distance into the thicket I came upon a headstone with an old folding chair beside it. The deceased’s given name was “Anna;” the chair was tattered and rusty. Anna found peace in 1935, but obviously her mate did not. I immediately thought of the cinematic vehicle used in the movie “Rocky Balboa (2006),” where Rocky kept a chair at Adrian’s grave to sit on while he visited. Anna and Adrian were relatively young when they died (both in their forties), but whereas Adrian was fictionally romanticized, Anna was a true love lost. The pain suffered by her mate must have been the kind Baudelaire knew:

"When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid
Upon the spirit aching for the light
And all the wide horizon’s line is hid
By a black day sadder than any night"

He could not forget Anna, yet he is long forgotten himself, along with the scores of other people in these lonely graves. As I sit in my comfortable living room a few nights later typing this, its pouring outside. I can’t help but think of that chair in the dark, in the rain.

I knew nothing about Mt. Peace Cemetery prior to my visit—exploration is more personal that way. Afterwords, I did some research. Mount Peace was organized in 1890 by African Americans to provide a burial place for their dead—they were excluded from other cemeteries because of race. Bear in mind that until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African-Americans were not allowed to drink from "white" water fountains or use "white" bathrooms. Even in death, there was segregation. Mt. Peace was designated as a "black" cemetery, one of the few along the East Coast (GSGI, 2003). Aptly named, it may have been the only place these people finally found peace.

In 1952, the company that owned and maintained Mt. Peace went bankrupt, and the 18-acre site fell into disrepair. A fire in the cemetery office destroyed all of the records and maps of the plots. With the inscriptions worn away from the stones, the dead have effectively disappeared. However, their presence is certainly felt. By 1978, Mount Peace was overgrown with shrubbery and had become a virtual dumping ground. Cleaning it became a neighborhood volunteer project. Residents came out every Saturday during the spring and summer bringing their own tools and equipment to clean up and cut back the undergrowth. The dividing line I noted earlier is simply where the volunteer cleanup crews ran out of resources. The Lawnside, NJ Historical Society continues to expand its efforts to restore and protect the cemetery.

Links for more information:

Garden State Ghost Investigations (GSGI)
Lawnside Historical Society
Mt. Peace Video Documentary

Hercules and the Best Cemetery Statues

Its certainly great fun exploring a new (to you) cemetery looking for unusual statues to photograph, but have you ever given up trying to find that elusive statue you heard was in a particular cemetery? Or maybe you just spent hours scouting around a graveyard you'd never been to, and you're wondering if you missed a particularly interesting monument? One method I've discovered to help me find unusual statuary in cemeteries is to ask the groundskeepers where their favorite statue is!

The first time this occurred was back in 2003, in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore. I was photographing with my friend Krista and we saw a worker loading a riding mower onto the back of his truck. One of us asked him, "What's your favorite statue here?" The guy got so excited he jumped into his pickup truck and said "Follow me!" As I’m writing this, I can’t recall which of us can take the credit for thinking to ask, which is odd because-to paraphrase Mark Twain-my memory’s so good I can remember things whether they happened or not.

The groundskeeper drove to the back of the cemetery and stopped at a three-foot-high white marble statue of a child. He got out of his truck, proudly showed us the statue said, "I call her 'Little Red Riding Hood!'" We were extremely grateful and spent the next half hour just shooting this unique sculpture.

Over the decade I’ve been photographing cemetery statuary, this image remains my favorite. It graces the banner on my StoneAngels.net website and is featured on my business card. It is one of my best selling photographs, and has turned out to be the most enigmatic.

Obviously, its not Little Red Riding Hood. The androgynous child is covered in a full animal skin (a bear? a lion?) and is holding what appears to be a shaleighleigh. The only thing the caretaker knew about the statue was that it graced the deceased man’s home (the person whose grave on which the statue stands). The man liked the statue so much that he requested it be placed on his grave.

Whenever I exhibit the photograph, people ask me what the statue represents. While I know the ‘stories behind the stone’ for much of my work, this one has eluded me. People have offered explanations, the most plausible one coming from an historian who saw it in one of my shows and said, “Oh, that’s Hercules as a child.” According to Greek mythology, Hercules did kill a lion and wear its skin, but he didn’t do this as a child.

Gallery curators expect you to title your work, but I have a difficult time with this image, since I really don’t know its meaning. I’d prefer not to title any work, really, as it forces a frame of reference on the viewer, beyond which they see nothing else. A title defines it for them. I’d rather leave a photograph open to interpretation, even one as seemingly plain and simple as this one. I like to think of the photographic image I created as being singular, and ultimately unknowable, much like ourselves. I’ve made the statue more abstract, in a sense, by photographing it out of its familiar context and giving it a new identity (through  the angle of view, the lighting, the dark background).
 
I like to think those of us who photograph cemetery statuary in a creative manner imbue the artistic philosophy described by the musician Patti Smith (in her book Just Kids, Ecco, 2010):

"It is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child animates his toys."

Links:
Read more about Patti Smith and Hercules