Expressive vessels for all that remains
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Ashes to artwork? Dust to decor? This week the cover story of Home’s print section explores the inventive turn funerary urns have taken and why. As writer Jeff Spurrier explains in the introduction to this fascinating piece, ‘cremation rates have risen from 23.6% in 1997 to a projected 39% in 2010, according to the National Funeral Directors Assn., and the figure is expected to hit 60% around 2025. With this rise in cremation comes the emergence of a related field: urn as decorative art.’
Click here to read Spurrier’s full story on this emerging phenomenon, and click here to see our photo gallery of funerary urns.
-- Deborah Netburn
Photos clockwise from top right: ‘Planets’ by Shawn McDonald is a sand-cast bronze kinetic piece that spins silently on a steel mount; artist Darin Montgomery’s irreverent ‘Urn-a-matic Vend’ and his ‘Urn-a-matic’ incorporating a vintage vacuum cleaner; artist Nadine Jarvis created a memorial in the form of a birdfeeder made of bird food, beeswax and human ashes. All photos courtesy of Funeria.com.
