Saturday, November 14, 2009

Weekend Water
A Gallery of Pleasure Craft Tombstones


Havurah Shalom Cemetery



Wisner Cemetery



Oswego Pioneer Cemetery

I promised long ago to complete my trio of boat monument posts; the first two, you’ll recall, covered fishing and working boats. That I have less pleasure craft than working boats in my collection might be due to my preferences as well as luck in what I find. In the archetypes I chose to accompany this post I notice, just for example, no kayaks (not to mention surf boards) or pontoon boats. Lack of pontoons might be a regionalism, but we have a lot of kayaking in the mountains.


La Center Cemetery



Crescent Grove Cemetery (Tigard, OR)



Pioneer Cemetery (Pioneer, WA)

Regionalism pops up in other ways. The small lakes of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, for example, don’t lend themselves to large sailboats; whereas the high-prowed McKenzie River boat is designed to ride over rocks in steep mountain streams. The small outboard fishing boats are universal as are canoes, speedboats pulling water skiers, and small cabin cruisers. There are no propeller propelled punts here.


Bilyeu Den Cemetery



Mt. Calvary (Eugene, OR)

I’ve thrown in two examples of the same stock design, a single fisherman in a small row boat, being used on two different stones conveniently rendered in complimentary colors. As far as I can tell, they’re essentially identical (slightly different water rendering) except that in the red version the fisherman has a pipe in his mouth. Ah, the personal touch.


Hayes Cemetery



Park Hill Cemetery (Vancouver, WA)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Campos Santos of New Mexico

A quick note here to alert you to an incredible selection of photos from New Mexican Campos Santos graveyards at a site called Crossroad. Their essential purpose "preserving the Unendowed cemeteries or 'Campos Santos' of New Mexico, as the saced and endangered places they are." I have put a link to them over on the side bar under "Dead on connections," so it'll be easy to find.m It's hard to look at them and not think of the cemeteries of their distant cousins, the Native Americans, who live up here. Certainly there is a form of continuity between them.

What the society does, beside taking evocative photos, is unexplained further. Whatever it is, I support it and strongly urge you to look at the pictures.