Sacred Art Burial Ground

I’ve been feeling the onset of autumn for weeks now, with cool mornings and nights, dropping apples and touches of color in the leaves.


Most of what I imagined I’d accomplish this summer remains of course undone. I now plan projects that will be more easily done when things in the garden, yard and woods die down. Tying up the wild blackberry and rose to make arches will be a thorny affair, and there is always the threat of that poison ivy. But longer sleeves and heavier clothes will make it less dangerous.

In concert with the Year of Letting Go, I have been dreaming and scheming a project called Sacred Art Burial Site for old art of mine that I’d like to clear out, in hopes of making room for new ideas as well as opening up space in the house.

Across the road, we own a piece of property that is unused, but for the woods it keeps, the deer trails, wildflowers and dappled shade. I go there a few times a year just to sit. It’s not far enough away from the road to be quiet, but it is a kind of secret place perfect for a tree house or a club house if you were a kid. And a cemetery for art if you are me.

I have been collecting things from around the yard all summer. A kind of clean up of the rusted things I have over the years scattered about to create interesting though decrepit focal points. They’ve never quite amounted to what I’d intended anyway. But will be perfect in setting the stage for art burial.

I sometimes chastise myself for all the things I collect. It’s a compulsion really. But whenever I am around other artists who work with natural materials as I do, I realize we are a band, a community. Not so much hoarders as sensitive souls who connect with the processes of decay and the wabi sabi of cast off, found and decomposing things.

When these odd findings I’ve been saving for seemingly no reason suddenly become useful and not only that but essential to the creation of a work of art, I am secretly triumphant.

I am planning to videotape the creation of the Sacred Art Burial Ground and perhaps even a sacred ritual event on Halloween or Dia de los Muertes. Certainly I’ll take photos as well.

If it seems a kind of gruesome project to some, to me it’s more about natural processes again, a constant theme in my work. Transition, transformation, transmutation. Seasons in nature, life and art.