Commissioned paintings using ashes of dead person

Artist Val Thompson creates commissioned paintings incorporating the ashes of people who have died, as memorials for their surviving loved ones. Above is a beach scene that Thompson painted for Anne Kearney, using some of her husband John's ashes mixed into the paint. It depicts the couple's last vacation together. From Sky:

(Kearney) was so pleased with the results that Ms Thompson did three more paitings for her before starting up her new business 'Ash 2 Art'.

"My brother and I did a bit of research on the internet and discovered nobody else is providing this sort of service," she said.

Val Thompson's Ash2Art

"Brush With Death: Painter Uses Ashes For Art" (Sky)

"Widow uses dead husband's ashes for painting" (Telegraph)

• [annoyingmouse]

  As tempting as paintings made from my ashes are, I’m probably still going to just go for immortality. I just think it’ll be the better choice for everyone concerned.

• [SamSam]

  @Anonymous: You made me snarf my coffee!

• [Anonymous]

  @Mojave ‘Here’s some bad news for all you folks who have had loved ones cremated: the ashes those places give to people are just the very generic ashes left over after countless cremations … Found this out the hard way’
  The easy way would have been to just ask somebody. What the hell was the hard way? A taste test?

• [Talia]

  Its not a staggeringly genius work of art, but its a nice enough picture! Its better than an urn! :)

  #9: the ashes are mostly symbolic anyway.

• [SamSam]

  It seems like a clever idea — better than a gold urn on the mantle at any rate. I feel that the company’s name is a little irreverent, though. Why the “2?” Would “to” not have been young and hip enough for a company painting with dead remains..? And it seem to me that it should have been “Ashes to Art” to echo “ashes to ashes.” Oh well, enough back-seat naming.

• [Steve Schnier]

  What if you wind up being painted into a painting that you just don’t like? That beach scene doesn’t do it for me. Would she do an “Elvis on Black Velvet” or “Dogs Playing Poker”?

• [Anonymous]

  The thing about urns is they don’t typically get accidentally sold at a garage sale.

• [Nycteris]

  I know of someone using ashes to make art glass; I wondered if there were laws about shipping art products with human remains in them. But it does seem like a more fitting idea, for some, than just having an urn.

• [Anonymous]

  I want my ashes to be used in a scaled down 3D replica of myself. With motion activated voice recording. And real hair. My wife works in a body scanning lab, so I already have the CAD files needed for the reproduction.

• [petronius arbitor]

  Gives new meaning to the term imPASTo.

• [Blackhat]

  “My brother and I did a bit of research on the internet and discovered nobody else is providing this sort of service…” Gee, I wonder why not… Tacky 2 the extreme!

• [thequickbrownfox]

  An old pigment used in painting up to the early 19th Century was Mummy Brown, a warm brown colour made from ground-up Egyptian mummies.

  Produces a much richer tint than ashes.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

• [Talia]

  I imagine she’d try and paint something to the bereaved’s request. After all this sort of thing is for the benefit of those left behind, not those gone.

  Terrific idea. I gotta vehemently disagree with you, Blackhat – IMHO its a very touching way to commemorate a loved one.. keep their spirit alive, sort of, in a beautiful image.

  I would commission one (lets hope I dont need to for a long long time).

• [lost feliz]

  The dark subversive ceramic artist Charles Krafft has been making “Spone Funerary Ware” for many years using human bone. His disasterware and porcelain weapons are things I’d assume the folks at Boing-Boing would know about. No offense, but the painting above sucks.

• [guernican]

  “The LifeGem® is a certified, high-quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique life.”

  http://www.lifegem.com/

  And I fear that this is every bit as mawkish and tacky.

• [EH]

  This ain’t the half of it. You haven’t experienced comedy until you’ve walked into the casket showroom at a mortuary.

  And can BoingBoing get rid of the popup ads?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    If you get a pop-up or a Scientology ad, send me a screen shot, please. We can’t do anything without evidence.

• [Mojave]

  Here’s some bad news for all you folks who have had loved ones cremated: the ashes those places give to people are just the very generic ashes left over after countless cremations. There is no way that they can seperate out one person’s ashes from another. Same goes for the pets we have cremated.

  Found this out the hard way.