Lanson
Lanson is a Yorkshire based abstract artist specialising in putting cremation ashes into artwork.
Her dad died in 2016.
“We got a plastic tub with a barcode on the side with Dad’s ashes in. It really shocked me. More than when he passed away. I really wondered how the system had allowed this to happen.
People say that the cremation or the funeral is the ‘final goodbye’. And yet it wasn’t. Suddenly, he was back - and in such a dehumanising way.
I mean, it’s just the system. It’s so quick. People are on this conveyor belt. But it really stuck out to me.
It’s about choice. I want to give people more options. Grief is so individual, so it’s weird that when someone dies we do what we’re told.
In ancient times, creative things were much more part of the process of death and remembering. Look at hieroglyphics, tombs. Things were much closer, much more of a community affair. Now, we’ve clinicalised our ceremonies.
If you don’t have a religion or a set rite, I think you can feel a bit lost.
I did an art foundation course. I did a couple of exhibitions. Later on, I joined an art group. But then life happened and it just…stopped.
Then I became a mum and it was so, so hard for the first seven months. I thought, if I can do that, I can do anything. I didn’t want to go back to my job - I knew I wanted to retrain.
I ended up doing some art courses online and I felt like I was coming back home. I just felt so happy - like this was where I was meant to be.
The idea of putting ashes into art wasn’t an immediate thought. It was a couple of years after Dad had passed.
Dad loved Spain. He talked to his cats in Spanish. He insisted that his grandchildren called him ‘abuelo’. He loved Salvador Dalí. He wanted me to paint a mural of one of his paintings on his wall for him. I never did it and that was a regret.
I thought, maybe it could be a starting point. Maybe I could do a painting in memory of him.
There’s a reference in the piece which traces the mountains in Port Lligat where Dalí had his last house. Other things came out intuitively. I created tiny wiggles, lines and dots. To me, those wiggles were him wandering, exploring the mountains.
I let the tools speak to me.
I felt I’d created his new life where he’d always wanted to be. And I could see him happy and at peace
“In some small way, they’re part of their life again.”
I’ve completed ten commissions putting cremation ashes into art.
People come with how they feel and it’s my job to interpret that. I think that’s the way art should be - there shouldn’t be any pretences. We talk about colour and shape.
They’re all completely different. Some of them are representative of the person. Some are more about the relationship between two people - one living and one passed on. Sometimes I draw things in their real form and it becomes abstract.
A lot of people have said it feels therapeutic. One person said she comes downstairs every morning and sees the painting I did for her mum and smiles.
Another woman had a baby who was stillborn. She wanted her daughter to be up there on the wall with the rest of her children.
It allowed her to have her in the room without the worry of someone asking what it was - the urn or whatever, or a photo that she didn’t necessarily want to share.
This process is a completion of something. People say things like, “They’re home with me now”. Or “I’m planning to move house and they can come with me.”
In some small way, they’re part of their life again.”