|
Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
|
|
Artist uses unclaimed remains to humanize paintings |
|
|
|
|
Written by DeadGirl
|
|
Wednesday, 25 August 2004 |
By BARBARA KARKABI
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
A lot of unusual things happen on Houston's freeways, especially when traffic's bad.
Drivers routinely devour meals, talk on phones, sing to themselves, apply makeup, and a few even say they've changed clothes while behind the wheel.
Wayne Gilbert, a Houston artist, got one of his best ideas while humming along the highway. One day in the late '90s, there he was surrounded by people in cars, going absolutely nowhere, when an idea hit him like a thunderbolt.
"I was trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between what is human about art and what art is about humans," Gilbert said. "And it hit me that I could show that by using human remains (ashes) in my paintings."
Sound like a macabre episode out of Six Feet Under? Not quite, although Gilbert admits that many people find the idea a little off-putting.
"The vast majority start out saying, `Oooh'," he said. "Then they open up to it."
He tells visitors to his 5,000-square-foot home and studio in the Heights that the ashes he uses are all unclaimed from funeral homes -- several as long as 25 years.
"I got the feeling that some of them might have ended up in the trash," he said. "It took me six months of asking, working and phone calls before people would listen to the idea, because I was very up front. I don't feel disrespectful about it; quite the opposite, I feel very respectful."
An agnostic, Gilbert believed that painting with human remains would not be a big deal to others. It didn't take long to find out he was wrong.
The first box he was given contained the ashes of a woman named Anna. As soon as Gilbert put the box in the car, he felt an immediate bond.
"I had a sense that I had an obligation and that there was something greater about this relationship I had than just a box of ashes, "Gilbert said.
"I don't want to be too hokey about it, but I do understand the spiritual ramifications. A lot of people think it's a macabre, goofy thing. This has nothing to do with any of that -- it's all about art. And it's a pretty cool vehicle for the people who might have ended up in the trash to be in a place where they might last a whole lot longer."
Not everyone agrees, and debate rages over whether it is art or simply art that shocks. Marshall Lightman, who with his wife, Victoria, runs a class called Looking At Art, first saw Gilbert's work at an alternative art space and considered taking their class to visit his studio.
To Marshall Lightman, Gilbert's work is an example of 21st century art, which often is edgy and can use unusual materials.
"The controversy or issue is what he is mixing it with," Marshall Lightman said. "If you get hung up on that, you can't appreciate it. But if you get through it, then it's 21st-century art."
Before they took their class to visit Gilbert's studio last year, the Lightmans had a few questions.
"We wanted to talk to him about the content," Lightman said. "Was this going to be shock art or was there solid content behind the idea. After he explained the whole story, we could see he had given a lot of thought to it."
Though several people in the class walked out, most stayed to look at Gilbert's art and his home/studio, Lightman recalls. Some thought it was "strange and weird," though at least one person decided she wanted to donate her ashes to be used in one of his paintings.
Others felt differently.
"He's not getting my ashes, unless I die a pauper and my children don't claim them,"said Mary Ann Ryerson. "It was definitely provocative and interesting, and I'm glad I went to see it ... . But afterward when we talked about how creepy it was, we realized that we were discussing it more than other exhibits."
And from Harvey Marks: "My guess is that Gilbert's real goal is to shock us by how daring he is and by his willingness to defy taboos. But it just seems so adolescent."
Gilbert shrugs off the criticism. Only recently has the work started to sell and he is careful to place it with the right collectors -- those who will respect it.
For the most part, he is happy to exhibit his work in shows and in the former glass factory that he and his wife, Beverley, renovated in the mid-'90s as their home and his art studio. They live there with a small menagerie that includes a large poodle, two cats and a blue and gold macaw named Phoebe.
On one side of the living room is a wall covered with paintings and drawings by artist friends such as James Rosenquist, Nancy Kienholz, Derek Bosier and Lucas Johnson. Some of the work is his own.
On the other wall are 27 plain white boxes containing ashes, works in progress and completed pieces such as A Guy Called Murphy.
"Murphy was the only box that didn't have a name on it," Gilbert recalls. "I asked who he was and was told, `a guy called Murphy.' ... If I was a betting man, I would say he was probably homeless."
The ashes-and-oil painting shows a large hand emerging from an isolated area of brush and weeds.
"It's a quiet statement that has a kind of poetic reverence, I think," Gilbert said. "It has a lot to say about humankind and solitude. You know you can deal with everything in this kind of work -- religion, life and death."
Gilbert has produced about 50 pieces using human remains. At first the ashes were mixed with color, but now he mixes them with a high-quality resin gel that he refers to as his palette. Everyone, he says, is a different color.
On the back of every painting are the names of the people whose ashes he has used -- an important touch, Gilbert said.
Gilbert, 57, came to art late in life. Born and raised in Houston's East End, his parents encouraged their children to get paper routes -- not visit museums. He lived, he says, a life of "reckless abandon" till the age of 30, dropping out of college and hitchhiking across the country.
After meeting Beverley, the couple took art courses and he began pursuing it with a passion. He went back to the University of Houston with a major in painting and a minor in art history.
Gilbert called his work "absurd expressionism," insisting that people needed to look at the ugly side of life, too. Though he won awards and praise from artists, few of his paintings sold.
In the '80s, Gilbert belonged to a group called Rubber, art outsiders who put on a range of entertainment in galleries -- ranging from a live bullfight to a bubble-wrapped cowboy, hung from the ceiling like a human piñata.
"All of this was with the backdrop of paintings and the idea that art was a little snobbish, a little intellectual, considerably academic and sometimes boring," Gilbert said. "Our idea was: Since we didn't fit in, anyway, we might as well have fun."
Rubber ended about the time Gilbert started his new project -- painting with human ashes.
Not long ago, the Gilberts' home was on a Heights home tour and a group of elderly ladies came through, stopped at one of the boxes and said, `Oh, that's Peggy from church.'
"A couple of weeks later they called and said they had talked to the family and they were overjoyed that this was being done," he said. "They had donated all of Peggy's organs to the organ bank and they had a great relationship with her. That was enough for them."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/art/2754886 |
|
Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” Helen Keller
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
|
