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• More Features!! :) :)
  by macabrecat

  “Home Sweet Home” is also being featured right now in the EBONY & IVORY group ….as well as T…

  “Home Sweet Home” is also being featured right now in the EBONY & IVORY group ….as well as TWO shirts I designed have been being featured for a few weeks now, I just didn’t record them until now, in the ART INSPIRED BY DREAMS group! :) “Home Sweet Home” “Elegy” “Fallen Angel” Thanks so much for all the support everyone!! :D

• My Image Voted Most Popular in the Cemeteries Challenge
  by Kitsmumma

  Huge thank you to everyone that voted for my image At the going down of the Sun...

  Huge thank you to everyone that voted for my image At the going down of the Sun in the Cemeteries Challenge, this was totally unexpected and a very nice surprise, not to mention the confidence boost! Thank you everyone. x

• Grave Houses
  by HarrietRN

  I became interested on Gravehouses after a conversation with an acquaintance, when I asked if one of the photos that was taken was one of…

  I became interested on Gravehouses after a conversation with an acquaintance, when I asked if one of the photos that was taken was one of a house over a grave, this acquaintance had never heard of a house over a grave, and had never seen one, and quite frankly I think they thought I had lost my mind, but gravehouses are a part of Oklahoma History and can be seen in many of the cemeteries in this area. It is a tradition that is still used today, although most of them are now on private Indian land, in family cemeteries. Below are a few of the more modern Gravehouses: In these structures there is more than one person buried, and there is usually a child among them buried inside with a tombstone. Among the more expressive of the decorative artifacts is the graveshelter, a house-form structure of small to modest proportions commonly erected over individual graves. The typical gravehouse, graveshelter, or spirit house as some may refer to is seen below. I will also try to explain what they represent and the purpose of a gravehouse, much of the original history is forgotten, even tho the practice is still used today. The earth is a spiritual part of the Native American, and people are a part of the earth. People must live in harmony with plants, animals, the earth and other people. Living in harmony includes respecting the feelings and cultural beliefs of other people, even if they are different from your own. The small house is a little larger than the grave and about two feet high, having a gabled roof. Some of the structures are wood and are covered with shingles, while / some are of concrete and are flat on the top. Some families put tombstones at the head and foot of the little house. Often the picture of the deceased is placed on the headstone. Some only have markers as this one below: The body of the deceased was kept covered inside the dwelling for half a day after death; then it was prepared for burial by the blood kin and dressed in their finest. Items of honor such as feathers and favorite weapons were included. The interior of the grave was sometimes lined with stone slabs, but usually wood and bark were used. The body was wrapped in a skin or covered with bark. Some of the bodies are bound in a sitting position, and some are buried standing up. Some had their horses buried on top of them. One must investigate the spiritual beliefs of a group of people in order to better understand their culture. Some Indians today still practice burying food and other possessions In the casket. Quite often a nursing bottle and canned milk is placed in the coffin with a baby. Scissors, thread, needles,and a thimble is buried with a woman. Tobacco, food, clothing,and cherished possessions of the deceased are often buried with the body or placed in the little house over the grave. Missionaries say that they have covered up in graves many hundreds of dollars worth of valuable blankets and shawls. Also those that have had limbs amputated are taken and buried, and then when the person dies they are once again reunited with their limbs. None of the gravediggers could be related to the deceased nor be of the same name group. The funeral rites last four days and included purification rites, burial addresses, feasts, vigils, and condolence ceremonies. First a communal meal is ‘shared’ with the dead. Then the mourners gather outside and share recollections of the life of the dead person. Each night for four nights, a fire is lit on the grave. After everyone who wants to has spoken, elders relate myths and legends until dawn. This is repeated for four nights, when the spirit of the dead is finally thought to depart the earth at dawn of the fourth day. After the spirit has departed the home can be purified Many of the graves have been desecrated, so some have built or had built stone structures, as seen in the photo below, notice the triangular windows and the square windows in the houses this is called a spirit window, so the spirit can come and go, and some say it is also so the spirit can breathe. Most Native American tribes believed that the souls of the dead passed into a spirit world and became part of the spiritual forces that influenced every aspect of their lives. Many tribes believed in two souls: one that died when the body died and one that might wander on and eventually die. Food and other things are left at the graveside and families also go and eat with the spirits and take food for the spirits at the graveside. Below you will also see some other grave monuments and notice the tiny cars left on the one of the baby, they are left there and are untouched, so that when the spirit comes out to play it will have something to play with. Also below is a picture of other things left at a grave. Most likely these were favorite things of the deceased. These are pictures of some other stone graves, most of them are of babies and children. You may also notice the name Harjo on many of the markers, this means “No Name” in English. The sad thing is that these graves have been desecrated and robbed, and the artifacts sold. In was not until 1997 that a statute was adopted to protect the desecration and robbing of Indian burial sites, it is called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act… NAGPRA. There is so much more I could tell of the history of the Native Indians, so much is sacred, but they are people who care deeply for their families, and are family oriented, they believe greatly in spirits and this is a part of their everyday lives. It is unbelieveable to me that it was not until 1997 that the grave sites of the Native Indians were considered sacred and a law was passed to protect them, even tho grave robbing still goes on today. Bobby C. Billie a Seminole Elder says this: “Grave desecration is a very bad thing for all peoples of the earth! Peoples of the earth of all colors! My ancestry is White, Black, Indian, Spanish, French, African, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Iroquois, and so on. I am a man-woman of the earth of all colors! My ancestors of these many nations are also enraged over how the governments and scientists of this nation desecrate graves and disturb the resting spirits. They mess up the cycle of birth and death, life and regeneration! The spirits talk to each other just like we talk to each other. When a spirit sees another spirits’ bones desecrated he feels it too!” Bobby C. Billie, Seminole Elder

• Pere Lachaise cemetery
  by Skip Hunt

  I just read someone mention the Pere Lachaise. This time of year always brings back a memory of a very strange experience I had a few yea…

  I just read someone mention the Pere Lachaise. This time of year always brings back a memory of a very strange experience I had a few years ago in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris where Jim Morrison is buried. I’d just finished a loop starting in Lisbon, Portugal that took me up into Spain.. up into South France… back down into Spain… and completed a circle crossing from Seville to Tavira, Portugal and back up to Lisbon for my flight back home to the States. When I confirmed my flight I was told that I’d have about a 3hr layover in Paris. I asked the agent if that was enough time to get into the city and back to the airport in time? She said that it wasn’t and asked if I wanted a longer layover. I said “absolutely!” She asked how long I wanted, and I joked “how ‘bout a week or so?”. She said that wouldn’t be a problem and that I could make it as long as I wanted as long as I was getting on the same flight in my original route. I pulled the trigger on changing my layover in Paris from 3hrs to about a week….the problem was… I hadn’t thought about how I was going to survive in Paris on a near empty wallet…. I’d already been traveling several weeks and was kinda broke. But, I got real creative and found a cheap room that would take a credit card.. did things like going to the Louvre after 3pm when the price dropped to half-price, ate quiche in bakeries instead of restaurants, etc. My cheap room didn’t have a shower, but it had a huge sink that I could get mostly clean with instead of paying the extra fee to use the common shower down the hall. And spent time in the Pere Lachaise cemetery looking for famous tombs and taking photos. I actually had a fairly rich experience in Paris with next to no money at all! I found all the tombs on my list of famous people I’d heard of. My favorite was Oscar Wilde’s tomb with all the lipstick kisses covering it. For some reason I got the name “Edith Piaf” in my head. Must have seen it somewhere. Or heard her name mentioned at some point. Not sure, but I really wasn’t sure who she was at all. Didn’t even know she was a singer at the time, but I was obsessed with finding her tomb for some strange reason. It took me the longest to find of anyone’s, but I finally found it toward the end of the afternoon. It wasn’t as impressive as many of the others I’d seen, but I took a snap of it anyway and was about to leave the cemetery and check out that brasserie near one entrance that has all the Jim Morrison memorabilia an a few broken down old fans still morning his death over cheap wine. It’s hard to explain, but it seemed like this Edith person was communicating with me. I didn’t have anything pressing to do so I went with it. She instructed me to not be in such a hurry and to sit down for a bit. I sat on her tomb and lit a gauloise cigarette. She asked for a drag and then passed it back to me. She told me that I was always in too much of a hurry and worried way too much. That there was so much in life I was missing by being so rushed all the time and that I should slow down. She said that she knew that I felt my life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to at the moment… but that it was about to get worse after I got home, and that I’d feel like I’d been kicked in the stomach.. that it would get very heavy to deal with.. but that I should hang in there and that it would get much better after what I was about to go through. She didn’t specify what that was… but just told me to slow down, not worry so much, and know that what I was about to go through would be tough.. but, that I’d survive it and move on down the road for more adventures. She then said that’s all she had to tell me and that I was free to go. She asked that I have a glass of wine for her in that Morrison brasserie on the way out. I thought.. wow… that was pretty odd. I must’ve really lost it. Or, my imagination has completely got out of control this time. I honored her request and had one glass of cheap red wine for me, one for Jim, and one for Edith… then headed back to the Latin Quarter. After I got home, I found a CD of her music and bought it. I hadn’t even listened to it yet as I was going over how much I’d spent on that trip and how I couldn’t afford it, etc. Various other things had happened that felt like the whole world was starting to close in on me… just like Edith said… and then I got a call. It was my sister and she said that our father had unexpectedly passed away the night before. It felt like I’d indeed been kicked in the stomach and all the wind had been sucked out of me. I told my sister I needed a moment and that I’d call her back. I opened a bottle of wine, and put on the Edith Piaf CD I’d bought a few day prior. I can’t tell you how soothing it was to hear her sing for the first time. And, it definitely helped during that very tough time in my life. I still don’t know if it was all just Wilde imagination… or something else. That trip was around this time of year and often wonder every time someone mentions that beautiful Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. WILDE

• In Reference to my photos of Thornrose Cemetery
  by Tara Sheffer-Archie

  Here is a little on the history of the cemetery. From 1750, all burials in Staunton took place in the 2 ½ -acre plot of Augusta Paris…

  Here is a little on the history of the cemetery. From 1750, all burials in Staunton took place in the 2 ½ -acre plot of Augusta Parish Church. By the late 1840s this cemetery in the center of town was so crowded that it was nearly impossible to dig a new grave without unearthing an old one. A new cemetery was needed. A committee was formed in 1848 to pursue the creation of a new burying ground, and on February 24, 1849, Thornrose Cemetery Company was chartered by act of the Legislature. Twelve acres west of Staunton were bought and laid off in lots, roads and walks. The first burial in Thornrose occurred on March 29, 1853, with the new cemetery being formally dedicated on May 28, 1853. After the Civil War, Confederate dead from the battlefields of Alleghany, McDowell, Cross Keys, Port Republic and Piedmont were interred in a newly created soldiers’ section. This led to the establishment in 1870 of the Augusta Memorial Association, which eventually spearheaded the 1888 dedication of the cemetery’s Fort Stonewall Jackson. Its centerpiece, an Italian marble statue of a Confederate infantryman, rises 22 feet above the graves of some 1,700 fallen Southern soldiers. In the 20th century, Thornrose continued to improve its already impressive landscaping with stone structures, above-ground vaults and momuments that honored those who fell in America’s armed conflicts. Today Thornrose is considered one of the most beautiful and historic cemeteries in the country. /

• New Chapter, New Subject
  by Lenny La Rue, IPA

  Hello Kind Readers. Today marks the beginning of a new aspect to my photography, the images of graves, graveyards, and the things associ…

  Hello Kind Readers. Today marks the beginning of a new aspect to my photography, the images of graves, graveyards, and the things associated with both. If not for Red Bubble, I’d have kept any photographs of this topic in a private section of my personal galleries at home. But seeing the wonderful captures from at least one of the RB groups has inspired me to both take more shots and to publish them here. While the deaths of people are not the things we often find as casual as a photograph of a lizard eating a bug, the images their graves present is another story and one that deserves to be shared. The principle place I will be using is the very old graveyard at the edge of the downtown area of Sacramento, California. It is a national historic site due to many of the graves known to be here. California being the state that fostered the Gold Rush in 1849, numerous pioneers passed thru (or passed away in!) Sacramento so some are buried here in well-marked tombs. There are also hundreds of Veterans of many wars from the Spanish American War up to and including recent Gulf Wars. For me to be able to do this, I had to make some compromises. It’s not an issue with my religious faith but I find it a bit distasteful for me to be asking for money with any of these photographs. Don’t get me wrong: I find nothing wrong with anyone else doing so if they choose to. But for me, I can’t wrap myself around the concept of collecting anything from the deaths of these people except something that was left to remind us of their departure. A photograph seems like one of the most fitting tributes possible as long as I don’t personally gain from it. So, all the shots in this series will be listed as “for sale” in case anyone wants one but there will be a zero profit margin for me from their purchase, making them the baseline price that Red Bubble asks. Also, in my religion, death of the body isn’t all that big a deal – unless it’s someone I loved and then it sucks even if my religion says I should rejoice. This means I have absolutely nada concern for the physical bodies under these monuments but I have a deep reverence for the persons who inhabited them. Nevertheless, being in the graveyard does present some of the most hysterical images I’ve seen thru my lens to date so please don’t feel I’m disrespectful for the lives ended when I point those facts out in these images! I’m just maintaining the gifts God gave me for honesty, laughter, reflection, and documentation. If something appears to be in bad taste, please let me know in BubbleMail and I’ll see if I see your point and need to make a change somewhere. This may be edgy material and the odds of me knowing when and where it’s disturbing for the entire world’s population are zip. But I’m sensitive to all people’s feelings and will read and consider each piece of mail with concerns I receive. OK, all that said, here’s to a beginning for me. Hope it brings you something worthy of your precious time on earth ABOVE the ground. Be well. Literally. / Lenny La Rue

• Oakland Cemetery Damaged By Recent Tornado
  by Mark Tisdale

  Atlanta’s Historic Oakland Cemetery was badly damaged in the recent tornado that struck the heart of the…

  Atlanta’s Historic Oakland Cemetery was badly damaged in the recent tornado that struck the heart of the city. While the cemetery belongs to the city, it’s a 150 year old burying ground that has depended on a nonprofit foundation for preservation efforts that have been underway. Based on the photos I’ve seen both on flickr and on the Cemetery’s website, it looks like the tornado was a huge step back. If you want to help preserve Oakland for future generations, check out their website for details. Additionally, for at least the next several months, I intend to take any profits from the sale of the following images at Oakland and donate them to the cemetery’s foundation. See the following images.

• TEXAS TOWNS ON ROUTE 66!
  by Patricia Montgomery

  CONWAY, TEXAS Next stop after leaving Amarillo was the tiny town of Conway. A large section of the old town was entirely fenced in, ...

  CONWAY, TEXAS Next stop after leaving Amarillo was the tiny town of Conway. A large section of the old town was entirely fenced in, containing a junkyard of Route 66 relics and dilapidated buildings. I took my first photo through the fence and there happened to be a horse grazing inside. As we drove slowly further west, the horse trotted with us and would stop to look at me as I focused the camera. I do believe this was a very tourist-friendly horse who recognized paparazzi and the possibility of fame and fortune. We found another quirky ranch in Conway nearer to the interstate – The Bug Ranch. Here we saw five Volkswagen Beetles buried nose first in the dirt, but not quite so straight or at the same precise angle. This was definitely a spoof of the more famous Cadillac Ranch. In Amarillo, we climbed all over the cadillacs and they didn’t budge. However, I would not recommend doing this with the Bugs as they are less stable. ALANREED, TEXAS The first structure we saw on the eastern edge of Alanreed was the First Baptist Church, established in 1905, with a sign near the road proudly announcing its Route 66 location. At the bottom of the hill from the church was a nicely restored gas station. Built in 1930 the 66 Super Service Station was a glimpse into the past. Directly behind the station was an old garage with a restored advertising painting for Merit Seed & Feed. There are only remnants of the original town left, mostly covered with overgrown bushes and weeds. At the western end of town is an old cemetery with a historical Route 66 marker that indicates the first interment was in 1890.

• On A Hill Far Away...
  by Perspective

  On A Hill Far Away… has been featured in Dark Cabaret..

  On A Hill Far Away… has been featured in Dark Cabaret Special thanks to the moderators of the Dark Cabaret group for selecting this image as a Featured Work.

• Sold my first wallart!
  by TriciaDanby

  Thanks to the unknown buyer of Tears of Sorrow: !http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/framecolor:black/framestyle:flat30/mattecolor:o…

  Thanks to the unknown buyer of Tears of Sorrow: I am so happy about it! This is so awesome! :) A while ago I did also sell a shirt of mine: Thank you!

• "Child of Light" Featured in the Angel Wings and Poems Group
  by ShadesofReality

  Our first feature! Thanks! !http://images-2.redbubble.net/img/art/framecolor:black/framestyle:flat30/mattecolor:bright%20white/product…

  Our first feature! Thanks! / Child of Light

• Top 10 Finish for "I'm Back" in the Graphic Room Group's Manipulation Inc. Challenge
  by ShadesofReality

  The Graphic Room Group’s Manipulation Inc. Challenge...

  The Graphic Room Group’s Manipulation Inc. Challenge / I’m Back