In Perpetuity: An Update

With a little something about artists and grief

Longings and losses are a part of any life. Acknowledging them is part of any life well lived.

Lavender (I think), Santa Fe, NM.

I’m traveling through the middle of the country right now making the final photographs for my project, In Perpetuity. I’ve made five stops at cemeteries through Texas and New Mexico so far and discovered some new ground that I’m excited about. I still have the last leg of my trip pulling me homeward through northern Arizona and California. I’m hopeful for what I’ll find along the way.

I noticed something interesting in the last place I stopped. It was out of the way, near a railroad road track, and at a dead end of a neighborhood of mostly trailer homes. In spite of its remoteness it looked frequented.

Most of the graveyards and cemeteries I’ve photographed in the making of this project have appeared neglected no matter if they were off a highway or in a neighborhood. Fake flowers were largely faded with a few bright plastic blooms interspersed among them. This cemetery was a sea of fresh fake florals. It was inviting in its vibrancy.

I discovered this particular cemetery while eating the best burger I’ve had in a long time at a dive in Fort Sumner, NM. Sitting at the plastic covered table, feeling the breeze from the swap cooler across my face, a sign out the window caught my attention. It read: “St. Anthony’s Cemetery.” It seems innocuous but it was the St. Anthony’s part of the name that caught my eye.

The Catholic designation meant this cemetery belonged to a community — not a corporation. The dynamic of funerary land management has risen to the surface of my interest in making this project. Packages are often sold at corporate cemeteries for “perpetual care” that doesn’t always happen, yet the bill still arrives monthly to the family members left behind.

St. Anthony’s is different in kind. Its perpetual care is in the hands of the church. I imagine the people laid to rest there belonged to this church community. Some of the visitors placing the flowers regularly attend, perhaps, even today. It’s not owned so much as it is shared. It seems that it’s harder to be forgotten when you’re in community. I saw that first hand at St. Anthony’s Cemetery.

This is no longer the dominant model for burials in western America. The primary model is a business one. Corporations own the land and run the businesses that manage twenty-first century death rituals. It’s easier to be forgotten in the hands of a corporation. I’m beginning to wonder if, for some, that is the point.

There’s a tangential thread I want to pull at here from an earlier project of mine, Portraits on Estrangement. This project explored relational breakdown between adult children and their parents. It emerged in a moment when psychologists were beginning to acknowledge publicly how common this relational dynamic is today. I can only imagine how many more relationships are in difficult states that never enter estrangement and aren’t tracked or documented.

If relational breakdown is so common it starts to create a clearer view of perhaps why it could be so helpful to release care of a deceased family member to a neutral party and walk away. No new fake flowers. Paying for “perpetual care” is a relief rather than the emotional burden of providing that care personally.¹

In a society driven unconsciously by the Protestant work ethic, with boot straps capitalism clawing at our heels, many Americans do not have the space needed to look at our longings and losses — let alone the emotionally complex ones. There’s little margin, if any, to make room for that kind of processing. Would we even know where to begin if afforded the luxury of that kind of space?

Artists beckon people into this type of space regularly. Artists often make work out of their own longings and losses. Many times viewers sense that and respond to the invitation to acknowledge their own difficult feelings, even if only for the moment standing before the artwork. In this way artists create micro-communities from their work.

All these thoughts lead me to wonder: What could change if artists became part of the western rhythm of death practices? A new momento mori of sorts by helping people process their complicated grief through shared emotional experiences mediated through artwork.

Would more cemeteries and graveyards, even the corporate ones, be a colorful expression of shared life? Or would the culture shift into a new way of memorializing the dead altogether?

What do you think?

1. Yes, cremation is an increasingly common method of internment after death across the US that can help some manage complex relationship dynamics after death. However, the question of perpetual care for those already buried traditionally becomes an even bigger concern under corporate management.