Art in Granite: Headstones and Cemeteries

I walk through cemeteries for serenity and inspiration. Instead of finding them creepy, I find them clarifying.

An angel at a grave in Chicago.

The art on the headstones as well as the poetry or frankness of the eulogies intrigue me. In addition to the basic “who” and “when” on the headstone, the additional text or the art within the cemeteries conveys the funereal expectations of the dominant culture.

When I lived in the North End in Boston, I lived across from Copps Burying Ground Cemetery. Robert Newman was the sexton in the Old North Church, who hung the lanterns on April 18, 1775 to communicate “one if by land” and “two if by sea.”

He is one of the patriots buried in Copps Burying Ground.

Headstone of Robert Newman, patriot buried in Copps Burying Ground, Boston.

From season to season, on the top edge of his headstone people left coins, American flags, notes, and other mementoes. It was very moving.

Sometimes when I visited and there were no coins, I added a handful from my pocket so other visitors who came after me could experience the remarkable pondering about the practice that I experienced each time.

Also, in Copps Burying Ground is a headstone that has been re-purposed. The front marks the passage of a child. A six year old girl, as I recall. Yet, on the reverse of the headstone is cursive writing that apparently was associated with another grave.

A re-purposed headstone. The “current” information is on the opposite side.

At some time, the headstone had been unearthed, cut to a new smaller shape and carved on the opposite side.

Very thrifty of these Bostonians 150 years ago.

An additional photo of Copps Burying Ground, North End, Boston, MA.

The tomb of President and Mrs. Warren G. Harding is a huge edifice. It signifies the contemporaneous popular opinion of a president who died in office. If it were built today, it most likely would be a less formidable shrine. Although, it is magnificent, so I’m glad it was about 90 years ago.

The tomb of President and Mrs. Harding in Marian, OH.

View of the columns and steps leading to Harding’s tomb.

In Paris, a photo of the tomb of Madame Marie Curie, as well as the tomb of Napoleon. In the image of Napoleon’s tomb, for scale, notice the people standing in the upper-center of the photo.

The tomb of Napoleon.

The stairway leading to Napoleon’s tomb.

The Bohemian National Cemetery, Chicago, had rows of headstones identifying the departed. Many from the late 1800s and forward had Slavic names. The ornate detail on some of the headstones was reminiscent to me of Ukrainian eggs.

Detail in granite at Bohemian National Cemetery.

The patterns carved into the stones convey the artistry of the crafts persons, and a point of view of the fleeting moment of life on earth.

Many headstones showed leaning or fallen crosses or trees.

A leaning cross symbolic of the sacrifices of Christ and the fleeting nature of life.

Trees fallen during a storm at the Bohemian National Cemetery. (Summer 2012.) Also indicative of the fleeting nature of life–as well as the power of storms in the Midwest.

Ironically, actual trees that had fallen in a recent storm in the cemetery replicated the symbolism and the drama of crosses on their sides as well as the frequent example of concrete molded to suggest the steadfastness of old noble trees, and presumably of the individual buried there.

Molded concrete popular in the Bohemian National Cemetery.

There were many examples of exquisite detail in the carving. One is illustrated in a tile wall accentuating an urn at a dramatic headstone.

Elegance and beauty at a grave site

This decorative artistry is in contrast to the sleek, no-nonsense flat headstones at many contemporary cemeteries.

Or, as discovered in a tiny little cemetery outside a teeny little town in  Minnesota, illustrating the practical side of their Norwegian and Lutheran heritage: a brief expression of a cause of death in a headstone says, “Died from a live wire.”

Cemeteries provide a pastoral canvas to display art, to convey the aesthetics of a culture at a point in time, and ultimately to leave many questions unanswered.

Cemeteries can inspire reflection and renewal, and can connect us to culturally instructive, brilliant art and craftsmanship.

My sincere gratitude to all the friends and families of the departed (as well as the countrymen and governments) who chose to commemorate their loved ones and leaders through the sculpture, poetry, and permanence of these headstones, tombs, and cemeteries.

 

Creativity and how to bludgeon it to death.

Quick update on Creativity. Just noticed that Emory University appointed the Dalai Lama as a Presidential Distinguished Professor. www.emory.edu/tweetpeace has a number of YouTube videos, etc. Some discuss the relationship between spirituality and creativity, some talk about the difference in creativity between the East and the West, and about how those differences express themselves in our art. Another point of view to broaden the discussion. 10/30/2010.

Up to our elbows in spiral notebooks is part of the national “back-to-school” mentality, but let’s consider what we are putting in our students’ heads instead of into the back-to-school shopping cart. Retail is a vital cog in our economic vitality, but the current buzz is that perhaps the most important component of the economic health for a culture is creativity. A Newsweek article, “The Creativity Crisis,” cited a study in which 1,500 CEO’s said creativity was the number one most important “leadership competency.”

This is right-side up. A dramatic view of the Milwaukee Art Museum taken from a table at the museum's restaurant. A soaring example of architectural creativity.

What is creativity? The article suggests a definition of creativity as: requiring the ability for “divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).”

Creativity as embodied in artist Billyo O'Donnel. En plein air painting in Siena, Italy, 2010.

So, how we are doing nurturing creativity in our classrooms and in our culture?

Newsweek reported that for the first time in the decades that it has been measured, American creativity is declining. A report by the Alliance for Childhood, documents that creative learning and the arts are being programmed out of schools starting as early as kindergarten (Edward Miller and Joan Almon, Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School. Alliance for Childhood: College Park, 2009.)

The authors found that in some of today’s classrooms, children are so unfamiliar with open-ended creative play, that “as one kindergarten teacher put it, ‘If I give the children time to play, they don’t know what to do. They have no ideas of their own.’” (8) For me, it is almost too sobering to accept that children in our communities do not have a concept of play.

Sidewalk art by children in Minneapolis-St. Paul as part of the Walker Art Center, Drawing Club project.

The report summarizes, “Research shows that children who engage in complex forms of socio-dramatic play have greater language skills than nonplayers, better social skills, more empathy, more imagination, and more of the subtle capacity to know what others mean. They are less aggressive and show more self-control and higher levels of thinking. Animal research suggests that they have larger brains with more complex neurological structures than nonplayers.” (7). These seem to be qualities it would be helpful to nurture in the next generation on our fragile planet.

How much damage has “teaching to the test” done to the ability of our students to ask questions, think independently, look for novel solutions, or engage in discussions presenting various points of view? How much damage has the amount of time taken from the arts –and even recess—done to minimize the sparkle in the eyes of an elementary student? (Or an elementary teacher?)

Richard Florida in his book, The Rise of the Creative Class, argues that creativity is the key economic and healthy-community resource of the future. Having an enclave of creative thinkers, or “creative class” as he calls it, will bring businesses, (with jobs), economic vitality and economic stability to a region. He writes that jobs don’t “come to a region.” They come to an area where creative people have nurtured an inspiring, creative community. (xix). “At all levels of government and even in the private sector, Americans have been cutting back crucial investment in creativity—in education, in research, in arts and culture—while pouring billions into low-return or no-return public projects like sports stadiums. …The real threat to American security is not terrorism, it’s that creative and talented people may stop wanting to come here.” (xxiv)

Independent student filmmaker in Chicago.

Visitors outside the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Boston, MA Fall 2009.

Consider for example that other countries are identifying creativity as a national priority:

-       In 2008, British secondary-school curricula was rewritten to focus on “idea-generation.”
-       The European Union identified 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation.
-       In China, “there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.” (These points are from the Newsweek article, “Creativity Crisis.”)

Think about it: it’s the creative members of a community that solve the problems, offer new opportunities, new products, new ways of using resources—the creative class offers the excitement and hope for the future. And it is a vital resource. Richard Florida says, “Creativity is not a tangible asset like mineral deposits that can be hoarded or fought over or even bought or sold. We must begin to think of creativity as a common good, like liberty or security. It is something essential that belongs to all of us, and that must always be fed, renewed and maintained—or else it will slip away.” (xxvi)

Music in the streets during a festival in the North End, Boston, MA.

It is linear thinking that confines creativity and innovation exclusively to art classes. These vital skills can be honed in many divergent forums. Although I am a huge advocate (naturally) of keeping the fine arts in all or our lives and in our curricula, perhaps, as the Newsweek article suggests it would be more palatable to introduce creativity in other areas of instruction, like in history or writing term papers. “Researchers say creativity should be taken out of the art room and put into homeroom. The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way.” (Newsweek).

Creativity and imagination are vital in science too, not only in discovery but in disproving, challenging and proving theses. “The obvious role of imagination is in the context of discovery. Unimaginative scientists don’t produce radically new ideas. But even in science imagination plays a role in justification too. Experiment and calculation cannot do all its work.” (Timothy Williamson, New York Times: Opinionator, “Reclaiming the Imagination,” August 15, 2010.)

Another benefit to society of using creativity and imagination, as suggested by Florida, is that it goes beyond problem solving, “Along with problem solving…work may entail problem finding: not just building a better mousetrap, but noticing first that a better mousetrap would be a handy thing to have.” (69)

Are the students you know given:

• enough introduction to the arts?
• enough time to find their voices through creativity?
• enough time to process and problem solve through open-ended creative play or group problem solving?
• enough immersion in a curriculum built around thinking in order to develop divergent thinking and convergent thinking?


Painting (c) Jane M. Mason, "Bird with Aspirations." What aspirations for innovation do kids have that we are squashing?

Are students in your community supported for engaging in the arts such as the visual arts, music, theater, dance, film, performance art, or writing? Are opportunities available? Is creative thinking and problem solving important? Is it important that students have a chance to stretch their creative wings?

The video “Schools Kill Creativity,” from TED.com will challenge your concept of creativity and how we are bludgeoning it out of our educational systems.

Let’s get real about true intelligence, knowledge and the skills we need to survive and thrive. Problem solving with divergent and convergent thinking are way up at the top. I think our culture and our schools are bludgeoning creativity to death.

Think about creativity. Watch the video on TED.com and think about what we each can do to put the emphasis on the right side of the brain in our schools and in our society.

"Bird with Sensible Shoes." Watercolor painting by Jane M. Mason, (C). This series of bird paintings popped into my head. It's a whimsical example of how creativity can be a stress reliever as humor for the artist and the viewer-- another true benefit in the world today.