(4/8/11) Death, like life, has its own beauty. Through the grief and heart-rending loss of a loved one we find ourselves selecting, or even designing, the most unique forms of memorial art. Headstones, urns, portraits and keepsakes are just a few ways people memorialize the deceased through art. These representations of life take on personalities of their own, markers of loss and love that never die.

When treading across the hallowed ground of a cemetery, we see depictions of cherished faces, crying angels, interwoven hands, even full figures of the deceased themselves clutching books or swords. Favorite hobbies or professions are often apparent, reminders of the exceptional lives of the deceased. Through the delicate carving of a living vine or smooth polished surface of a marble block, we come to know who they were. Memorialized forever are the beauty, talent and distinct personalities of these people.

Modern knowledge and technology allow for a myriad of artful methods of preserving the unique aspects of a person’s life. But art has been preserving life across cultures and throughout history. Finely crafted Cloisonné urns date back even before the Ming dynasty. Veteran cemeteries like Arlington spread across the land in living waves of memory. Even the Vietnam Memorial wall was brilliantly designed to cut into the land as the gaping loss of so much life cut into the American psyche.

These things and places are beacons for others to see how unique the deceased were, how cherished, how missed. It’s impossible to see an intricately carved headstone or grave marker and not think of the effort poured into it. An heirloom rosary’s faded beads hold the memories of a hundred prayers, and urns, the remains of kings.

An urn itself can take many humble or elaborate forms. There are glass, ceramic, stone, wood and metal urns of every shape and size, often selected to represent the true personality of the deceased. Though keepsake jewelry has been a keepsake method across history, we now see even key chains, lockets, and music boxes that hold a dearly departed’s cremains, lock of hair, or even just a short letter of love.

Not just for us, these keepsakes withstand the test of time, allowing generations that come access to our memories as only we can share them. It is with this antiquity in mind that art is born of death. In some areas of the world, whole families are entombed in family crypts; other cultures burn the remains of the deceased in elaborate ceremonies of grief and respect, saving only a memento of their life. No better documentation is kept throughout time than that of birth, death, and the traditions that surround them.

Our feet cannot tread through the well-kept grass of a cemetery without the beauty and history of the place steeling into us. While dusting an urn or pulling back the weeds from a marker, we feel the love of the deceased as if they never left. With beauty and grace we remember lost lives, with art and preservation they live on.