Halloween Spider Exit, Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Spider Walk, Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Casket Arts Halloween, Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
There was a Halloween Open Casket event at the Casket Arts Building last weekend. We spent several days hanging out in our studio, visiting with community artists and art lovers who stopped by to view and talk about art.
One couple had just moved into the building and we were talking about how the entire 3rd floor was once filled with women who sewed silk casket linings for the Northwestern Casket Company. And the polished maple we were standing on contained patches of thrown away boards from the casket builders downstairs.
That got me to thinking about caskets and, well, things just snowballed from there. Here’s my short list of fun things to do on Halloween.
1) Take A Casket Decorating Class
All things associated with death, including obituaries, caskets, and burials used to be an art form. People spent painstaking hours building and decorating caskets with the art of Rosemaling or Dalmalning. And there are people who still excel at this craft.
Rosemaling is Norwegian decorative painting. In an interview, Casket Painting Uplifted by Folk Art Tradition, Alegria talks about how she got started in casket painting. It’s spiritual work for her:
I do what I do because I have been given opportunities to experience dying, death and loss in the biggest ways, and I want to take what I’ve learned and experienced and help transform grief to glory.
If you head over to the Alternative Funeral Monitor News, you can read the whole interview with Alegria and see a photograph of a casket with Rosemaling.
Here’s an excerpt:
I paint Folk Art, primarily Rosemaling, a Norwegian folk art. I also use other forms, including Dalmalning, which is Swedish flower painting, and Baurnermalerai, a Bavarian folk art. In fact, every country has specific ethnic folk art forms, with designs and patterns that have been used for centuries.
Rosemaling actually comes from the early itinerant painters who traveled throughout Scandinavia. They stayed with families, became part of the family and decorated precious dowry trunks, beams, walls, ceilings and pews in the churches for the people. This art helped to bring light, color and joy into the long, dreary, dark winters.
The patterns and designs invoked spirits that the wood carvers had first carved on the Viking ships, such as acanthus vines, serpents and dragons. The shapes have meanings which they incorporated into the designs of this early work.
In addition, in the earliest burial customs, people were buried wrapped in a shroud. Later, when customs started to change and people harvested timber and used planks of wood to make caskets to bury people in, the custom began of adorning and decorating caskets. The ancient motifs and designs I paint with rise from the subconscious that now really is a form of tribal art.
2) Learn To Build Your Own Casket
The North House Folk School up on the Harbor of Lake Superior in Grand Marais, Minnesota is offering a Build Your Own Casket class. I don’t know about you, but this looks fascinating and fun to explore. What better way to prepare for that final resting place.
There are photographs and more at the link below. Just scroll down the Woodworking page to get to the casket building class.
Bury Yourself In Your Work – Build Your Own Casket
Instructor: Randy Schnobrich
Session Options: 12/5/2008 – 12/7/2008
None of us are getting out of this alive, so you might as well bury yourself in your work. Join a growing number of independent-minded people looking for a more meaningful alternative to today’s burial arrangements. This course covers a range of important details such as: proper sizing, joinery, handle construction, hardware and design options.
The finished casket need not wait for a final departure before being put to use. Above-ground applications include use as bookshelves, coffee tables, storage containers and entertainment centers.
3) Read Old Obituaries (1920’s – 1950’s) & Write Your Own
This one offers immediate satisfaction. We’ve talked about the obits many times on red Ravine. After reading today’s obits, I’m stunned by the richness and character of the old obituaries, how people used to take time to honor people in death by writing about their lives.
Mom uses obituaries in her research on the family tree and they often lead to uncovering buried skeletons. What a treat! It makes me wonder if there used to be people in a community who excelled at writing obituaries, writers that the grief-stricken would turn to to write the obit of a lifetime.
Here’s a link to FR – FZ section of a few Wisconsin ancestral obituaries. And a little bit about the poetic character of Anton N. Freng in this short excerpt from his obituary:
Anton Nilson Freng was born in Brottom, Norway, on July 31, 1852, and died at his home in South Valley, town of Summer, on November 6, 1933, having lived 81 years, three months and six days. He learned the painting trade under Master Erick Alm. In 1873, the family immigrated to America, stopping at Chicago for a few weeks and then making their home in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
A.N. Freng was a man of action. He served on his school district board for many years, was an organizer and director of the Osseo Canning Company, and served for thirty years as director and agent for the Pigeon Mutual Fire Insurance Company. He was secretary of the South Valley church for the past 45 years.
Mr. Freng was the leader in his community. He was endowed with more than ordinary amount of common sense and courage. His neighbors depended upon his counsel. He was a man of sterling character. He had a kind and jovial disposition. He was loved and respected by all who knew him well. His oft repeated phrase, “Another of our old and venerable pioneers has gone to his well-earned rest” has again come true, and may we add that the greatest of them all has gone.
Coming from a foreign country at the age of 21, not knowing a world of English and having had but little schooling, he rose to heights and power unsurpassed by many who had much greater advantages. He was great because he had ability, because he was honest and sincere. He expended his energies in the right direction, for the betterment and advancement of his community and country. The world is better for his having lived.
-Written by J. Reese Jones. THE WHITEHALL TIMES – NOVEMBER 15, 1933
Mr. Ghoul, & Pumpkin Man, Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Any takers? There’s nothing boring about death and dying folks. And for an extra special treat, visit Heather’s blog, Anuvue Studio. She goes crazy every Halloween with all things wild and wonderful.
Happy Halloween. Happy Day Of The Dead. Happy Samhain.
-posted on red Ravine, Friday, October 31st, 2008
Happy Halloween, QM. Hope you have a jolly ghoul time! 8)
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trick or treat! happy halloween
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I found this fascinating, if more than a little morbid. I donno… would you wanna have your own, home-made casket hanging around the house as a coffee table?
I guess it would make quite a conversation piece. The old obituaries were delightful, and, I was astonished that there’s actually a publication called the ‘Alternative Funeral Monitor News’.
Woah.
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Happy Halloween! I hope it’s filled with moonlight & magic. This post was very interesting. I think I showed you the antique boot brush with advertising for a furniture & casket maker. I’m being cremated. Now what? I’m not sure I’m capable of making my own urn, though I would enjoy writing my own obituary! 🙂 D
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oh very cool QM. So nice of you to think of me. Wish you guys could have been there. It’s 1:22AM, my dogs are dead tired and I remember having 2 giant cupcakes for dinner! This year we were at the gallery (instead of the house) and I made a big sign to divert them over. They came in mass numbers, up the 19 steps to Halloween Heaven.
We had caricature drawing for the kids, a photography area set up for costume shots where parents can go online and order the prints, candy and toys up the whazoo and for fun… I stuck a live rock band on the roof. I even raffled off my Day of the Dead photograph and I can’t wait to meet the winner. The police came twice and very kindly left twice when they saw the kids having so much fun. Everyone seemed to have a grand time.
I always have something funny happen at every event and this year was no exception. Last year a happy drunken woman fell through Skelvis’s dance stage at the end and she came over every day for a week to apologized…poor thing..
This year my friend (the photographer shooting the kids) got his crotch grabbed by a woman. She that told him she lived across the street and her husband was gone until thursday. She apparently lives in this giant house with a turret thing on top. When I left the gallery, I was cracking up because it was all lit up, waiting for him to arrive.
I called him at home to let him know she was still waiting. He wasn’t amused but boy, I was 😉
I sure hope you, Liz, yb and her gang all had a wonderful Halloween! You both would have loved my niece’s costume…she came as a “Blue State”. 😉
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ybonesy, hope you had a Happy Halloween, too. Did you go out trick-or-treating with your girls? Happy Day of the Dead, too. We have a friend whose birthday is today. We celebrated with her last night by a wonderful fire. You could tell the veil was very thin. Beautiful night.
Thanks, aefiel. Hope your weekend was wonderful.
diddy, I DO remember the boot brush with the ad for the furniture and casket maker. That’s so cool. A cool object to have around. I’m going to be cremated, too, but I just thought the idea of making your own casket seemed right for Halloween when we are basically celebrating the dead, those who have moved on before us.
I wonder if you could craft an urn out of wood. Hmmm. Maybe you could turn it in wood or clay on a wheel. Interesting thought. 8)
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amuirin, weren’t those Wisconsin obits great at that link? I thoroughly enjoyed them. You really got a sense of the way the person lived their life. I think I would rather have someone else write my obit, but I hope to have an obituary that celebrates my life.
Last night at the birthday gathering, we did something called a Birthday Legend. The friend whose birthday it was told us about it. Basically, we told stories about each decade of our lives: highlights, memories, challenges, coming out stories, EVERYTHING.
We started at dinner and it went on to the time around the fire later on. I can’t tell you how moving it was to bear witness to people’s lives like that. You learn so much about them. It was humbling and bonding. I think that’s the kind of obit I want. 8)
By the way, I stumbled on the Alternative Funeral Monitor News. I had no idea it existed either. I guess there is a whole movement out there of people searching for alternatives in death and burial. And also people who celebrate taking the time to honor people in death by handcrafting caskets and painting them. Amazing when you think about it.
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heather, WOW, your Halloween gathering sounds amazing (#5). Thanks for coming back and telling us about it right after the fact. I have been online only sporadically most of the weekend and am catching up.
I can’t believe the whole thing with the photographer, the crotch grabbing, and the woman across the street. You just can’t make something like that up! As usual, love your stories!
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Heather, what a blast! I’m so glad the kids were able to make it to the new digs. I was worried about how they’d figure out that the best gig in town had moved locations. 8)
And ha, the crotch grabber story made me chuckle. Wow, either that photographer was the looker or the lady in the turret house was lonely! Maybe both??
We had a good time. I should have dressed as a blue state—darn. I just didn’t have time to think about something truly creative. I went as a woman wearing a Marie Antionette wig. (Dee’s, from last Halloween.) Em was a candy corn; the father of one of her friends made eight costumes, so Em went trick-or-treating with them. Dee and her four friends were five spy girls, all wearing brightly colored bob wigs and black plastic trench coats. Both my girls were adorable!!
Dee and her friends and their parents and families all did our traditional thing—rode on the back of a tractor-drawn flat bed hay-wagon, along ditches, down long roads. It was lots of fun, and the mild night made it really comfy, too.
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p.s., Em and Dee are still into Halloween. This morning they finished watching Vertigo, which they started last night.
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I think I would love to rosemal in this vein. Maybe not a casket, I intend noy to use on of those, but it seems you could easily rosemal on metal. I used to do rosemaling in high school – I always found the colors very striking and the swirling the the brush tip quite fun.
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Vertigo is a great movie. We watched quite a few mysteries this week leading up to Halloween. Late at night, unwinding before hitting the hay. One night, right in the middle of one, the power went out. It was kind of creepy.
Bo, I think you could rosemal on metal, too. It’s a fairly new art form to me, not being originally from the Midwest. A friend who grew up here told me her mother had many items with rosemaling all over their farmhouse when she was growing up. If you come back to this post, I was wondering if you took a class in high school on rosemaling? Or did you learn it in your family history.
I liked reading Alegria’s history of rosemaling as an art form. There’s a lot more at the interview link. It seems like it started as a way for an artist to live and work while moving about the community. Kind of like a working-man’s version of being a Patron of the Arts.
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ybonesy, I wanted to mention one other thing about Halloween. A co-worker of Liz’s has a young one who was going to be Wolverine on Halloween. He got his costume a few weeks before and was waiting and waiting and waiting to go out trick-or-treating.
Finally, he said, “I’m going out tonight.” His Mom tried to explain that, no, it wasn’t Halloween yet. He kept bugging her and finally she told him she’s the parent and she gets the final say on when they go trick-or-treating (which wouldn’t be until Halloween).
He thought for a minute, then looked at her and said, “Okay, then. I don’t want to be Wolverine anymore. If a Parent gets to say when we go trick-or-treating, then I want to be a Parent for Halloween. And we’re going trick-or-treating right now.”
I couldn’t believe how he put that logic together. I’m trying to remember how old he is now. I’ll have to ask Liz. He’s quite a character. He’s the same boy who at the MN State Fair this year, talked his Mom and Grandmother into taking him into the Haunted House (even though his Mom said he was too young).
Once they got in there, he was scared to death. When they went past this one scary guy, the young boy grabbed his face, pointed in the direction of the creepy guy and shouted at the top of his lungs, “He’s got a knife!!!!”
Well, suffice it to say, they didn’t finish the trip through the Haunted House. They had to make their way past all the dressed up adults saying, “Make way, we’ve got a screamer.” 8)
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QM – I taught myself rosemaling from a book. I grew up in a German community – I don’t think anyone had an inkling that rosemaling even existed. But I saw a photo in an art book when I was in high school, and decided I wanted to try it. When I was 15, I loved experimenting with anything the least bit creative, and not having a lot of resources never seemed to stop me.
When I was in my thirties, I finally took a decorative wood painting class, and formally learned the strokes. I enjoyed doing a few pieces, but it’s not a art form I would choose to do extensively. It’s a little too technique and detail oriented – but I still think an rosemaled urn would be an interesting piece.
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QM, darling story about the boy who wanted to be a Parent for Halloween. I, too, was a Screamer at my first Haunted House, and I believe I was already at least about 9 or 10.
Hey, how long did your bag of candy used to last as a kid? I think it was my sister Janet who could make hers last almost a year. 8) She also was the one who took me to my first Haunted House, btw.
I was just now checking out some of the Rosemaling samples from the links. Bo, your comments on the practice and how you learned it piqued my interest. It has such beautiful results. It kind of reminds me of Mayolica traditions of the Arab-influenced Spain.
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Halloween’s coming! Liz and I did this crazy thing and bought one of those yard flags at ARC Value Village. You know, the kind that people have on their houses that change with the seasons?
Well, we couldn’t resist this black cat flag with the cat hugging a pumpkin. We don’t have a flag pole however, so I’m going to string it on the deck and hang it over the rail. We are big Halloween people in our household. It’s one of our fave holidays. If you’re out in our neck of the woods, look for the little cottage on the hill with the black cat flag! 8)
Anybody building their own casket for Halloween this year? I saw on the North House Folk School link in this post that they are still offering the class.
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North House Folk School has a new website, http://www.northhouse.org . Come build a casket!
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