Press Release 30th November 2022
National Grief Awareness Week: Yorkshire Artist is Offering FREE Memorial Art Commissions to Bereaved Individuals and Families.
This year, National Grief Awareness Week is taking place from the 2nd - 8th December and aims to raise awareness of the impact of grief and create a unified voice for all bereavement support services. As well as this, the campaign spreads the message that that there is no right or wrong way to deal with grief, and Yorkshire Artist, Lanson Moore wants to tell people about her new service which offers an alternative way of commemorating lost loved ones.
Further to public funding from Arts Council England’s ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ grant fund, Lanson is currently working on a new portfolio, ‘Ashes into Art’, which looks to take the ashes of lost loved ones and immortalise them forever in meaningful pieces of art.
Lanson is inviting people from the Yorkshire Region to get involved, where she will personally work with individuals or families to create them a FREE bespoke piece of art which will celebrate and memorialise their loved one, offering an opportunity to reflect and remember them in a truly meaningful way.
Places are limited, but all costs will be covered by the funding. The project aims to help families and individuals who may feel that the current offerings of scattering or putting cremation ashes into an urn, may not feel right for them.
Lanson came up with the unique idea of putting ashes into art following on from the death of her own father and tells her story of how the idea naturally came to her following a string of events:
“Almost 6 years ago, I lost my father quite unexpectedly. It was the first time I had lost anyone close to me, so I was completely new to the whole end of life process and what happens after cremation.
I was truly saddened and shocked when I went to pick up my father’s ashes from a local funeral director and found he had been housed in a horrible green plastic tub with a barcode on the side and plonked on the table in front of me. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t in an urn or that anyone had even given us options of what to do with his ashes. A complete lack of respect for him traumatised me and I knew there must be ways of changing this.
After the difficult task of transferring my dad’s ashes into a more commemorative scatter tube, later as a family, we scattered most of his ashes to say a final goodbye, and as well as this, two of my sisters put his ashes into jewellery and my brother filtered them into a cactus plant. I still felt that something wasn’t right for me but I didn’t know how else I could have memorialised my Dad.
Sometime later, I was reflecting on the fact that I always said to my Dad, Kev, that I would do an art piece for him – he wanted a recreation of Salvador Dali’s less known work ‘Landscape of Portlligat’ in the form of a wall mural. Unfortunately, in my case, and as we often do in life, I put things off and always thought ‘there’s still more time to do it.’ Sadly, I lost my chance to do the piece of art for him. Around a similar time, my sister had mentioned that some of the ashes she had sent to the jewellery maker had been returned as she had sent them too much. Then the stars aligned so to speak, and I thought what about using the remaining ashes to include in a piece of art that I never got chance to do for him.
I have just finished an art piece that will include the last remaining ashes of my Dad so he can be immortalised forever. The piece will live in my sister’s home where we will be able to spend time remembering him altogether as a family. The piece has been carefully thought through with other members of the family, making various links to my dad in terms of colour, style, composition etc.
This way of remembering my Dad has felt so much more personal on so many levels and has helped me to grieve properly for him. Art is so powerful at helping us to express our emotions, aiding the grieving process and becoming a creative place for reflection and remembrance. I am so grateful to be able to pursue this creative practice, which I am truly passionate about and look forward to supporting others who too maybe able to use art to help them heal from the loss of a loved one.”
Does this opportunity speak to you, or do you know someone who might like to be involved? In return for your participation, you will receive a FREE beautiful piece of art made by Lanson, to cherish your loved one and pass down to future generations.
For further information and an application form, please contact Lanson direct via email: lanson@lansonmooreart.co.uk.
NB. The deadline date for applications is 30th December 2022. Successful applications will be contacted in early- mid January.
