Shannon E. Barry
Art in Society (AAD 550)
10/21/2014
Field Guide Proposal:
For my Field Guide I want to cover the art world of cemeteries. I may seem a bit odd and morbid, but from my own experiences I have cultivated a different view. I will cover two small, regional cemeteries and one large, well know graveyard. I am not sure that I should cover all three, but I love to look at the comparisons and contrasting features to help explain these three graveyards.
I worked in a cemetery in Davis, California as a horticulture intern. I worked with the grounds manager Joe for over a year. I was involved in planting, tending gardens, weeding, and helping Joe replant old sections of the grounds. I grew to love the cemetery, came to find it peaceful rather than morbid or scary. Listening to Joe talk about his passion and dreams for the grounds, I came to see this place as one of art. Joe wanted to turn the graveyard into more of a park, a place people would want to walk around and bring their dogs. He also looked to the future by trying to create unique burial plots that were environmentally sustainable. He wanted to get rid of what he saw as “comforting” green grass (which takes unsustainable amounts of water to take care of) in favor of a more natural setting: in a field wild grass with wildflowers (to be planted according to the season) and native trees. At the same time I was interning at the Davis Cemetery District, I was taking a landscape architecture class. I learned about cemeteries in Victorian England and how they were set up as parks that the upper and middle classes would take their Sunday strolls through and spend time in to relax. The parks would be manicured with classically designed (albeit useless) “temples” and buildings dotted the landscape. To me, this fit in with Joe’s ideas. They mixed together so well. This is what inspired me for this project and what made me see cemeteries as a place for art, albeit different types of art.
For my Field Guide, I will create a guide for two college town cemeteries. The Davis Cemetery District in Davis, California and the Pioneer Cemetery in Eugene, Oregon. Both are fairly small, both are in college towns, and have gravesites that go back to the 1800’s. As my interest is history, I felt that cemeteries would be a very unique art world to cover that would still be in my general area of interest. In Davis as well as Eugene the graveyards tell the history of the area by showing what dates people died there, where they may have come from, and by tracking names of families in the sites, one can track their personal history as well.
As far as the field guide is concerned, the set up for the sites is an art in itself, the landscaping and care of the grounds is a careful, thought out process. All of the family copings and individual headstones can also be considered art. Headstones are designed in many ways using different types of materials, shapes of the stone, typography, what is written on the headstone, pictures and carvings that may be added, and various other elements that may be unique by region or family.
Within the Field Guide I plan on studying the layout of both cemeteries, see how if they are logically set up, where the walking paths go, and how organized the grounds seem to be. I will also go over the landscapes of each area, including what trees and plants are used, and in what functions. I will be studying the various headstones. The headstones are themselves an art and need to be studied in more detail. Along with individual markers, i will also look at the design of family copings.
To give these two small, regional cemeteries more context, I will also analyze one of the most famous cemeteries in the United States, Arlington National Cemetery. It has a long and interesting history. It is a graveyard and is of vast national historical importance. Multitudes people visit every year to simply see the grounds as part of their tour of Washington DC. I will review Arlington with the same categories as the Davis Cemetery District and Eugene Pioneer Cemetery. Comparing two small cemeteries and their history and art to an iconic national cemetery will show their similarities and important differences.
I have been to all three cemeteries. I visited Arlington about ten years ago, and even then appreciated its unique beauty. I worked as the horticulture intern at the Davis Cemetery District for a little over a year, while I was a senior at UC Davis. I walk by the Eugene Pioneer Cemetery every day on my way to class. All are beautiful and artistic in their own ways.
Sources:
1. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/
2. http://eugenepioneercemetery.org/