Burial Site #213, Greenlawn Cemetery, Columbus, OH
Photographs and Mixed Media on Paper
81 x 53 inches
2023
My practice has involved exploring burial sites as a subject for over ten years, and I focused on cemeteries, graveyards, and memorial grounds local to Columbus when making the work for this exhibition.
This drawing (visible through the front window of the gallery) weaves together two walks I took through Green Lawn Cemetery during the first week of July. Unlike many visitors, I am not searching for a particular headstone or memorial. Instead my attention constantly shifts between the peripheral details of the site as I wander. I see the cemetery as a mirror to the city of Columbus. The people who built the structures in which we live are buried there – what can we learn about ourselves through the memorials made for them?
I am an interdisciplinary artist, and the work emerging from my studio can take many forms. I am currently focusing on how image and text (particularly note taking) can work together in a drawing. When I arrange images on the page, it feels like I am constructing something cinematic. I am excited about this as an invitation for the view to experience the drawing as a nonlinerar narrative that documents many moments in time.
Burial Site #211, White/Britton Cemetery, Quarry Trails Metro Park, Columbus, OH
Photographs and Mixed Media on Paper
25.5 x 20 and 17 x 20.5 inches (Diptych)
2023
Burial Site #212, State of Ohio Asylum for the Insane Cemetery, Columbus, OH
Photographs and Mixed Media on Paper
25.5 x 20 and 17 x 20.5 inches (Diptych)
2023
These two diptychs document my visits to the White/Britton Cemetery in the newly opened Quarry Trails Metro Park and the State Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery.
Both sites point to a question that haunts all my work: who gets to be remembered?
When I first moved to Columbus, someone told me about the White/Britton Cemetery because it was so secluded and off the beaten path. They described walking inside as “stepping back in time.” In the past few years the city has developed a new Metro Park with walking paths that pass directly by the cemetery. In the process, the park administration cleaned it and gave it renewed attention.
At the center of the cemetery a headstone is swallowed by a tree. The bark has curled over the edges so that only the side profile of the stone is visible. Two large cracks are supported by the wood’s flesh, forcing the stone upright. A name inscribed is no longer identifiable. How many years did it take for the last letter to be absorbed?
The State Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery is also known as the “State of Ohio Asylum for the Insane Cemetery.” It is one of three burial grounds located on the former campus of the Ohio State Hospital, but this is the only one open to the public. The cemetery is a final resting place for those patients that didn’t have family or money to provide burial services after their passing. The site appears to be an open empty field, but I soon realized it is filled with small plaques embedded in the ground. There are no names on these markers. Instead, each carries a multiple digit number preceded with a letter. M marks male. W marks female.
What do we owe to those with no kin?
Burial Site #214, North Graveyard (North Market), Columbus, OH
Photographs and Mixed Media on Paper
10 x 12 inches
2023
How do we honor the dead on which we inevitably unknowingly tread?
This small drawing records my visit to the former parking lot of North Market in downtown Columbus where a 300-million-dollar hotel is currently under construction. While digging for the foundation the developers discovered at least 40 bodies, the last remains of the North Graveyard, one of Columbus’s first cemeteries. As the city expanded, they moved about 2,500 graves to Green Lawn Cemetery in the 1880s to make space for new business in the downtown area. The remaining burials found when the city does street maintenance or new building projects are those who were unmarked, forgotten, or abandoned by families who were unable to pay for their exhumation. The bones recovered will now be used for archeological research before they are finally interred at Green Lawn.
During my visit, I walked around the perimeter of construction fencing, occasionally peering in to see the dug-up parking lot.