Program & Artworks
Corporate Sponsor:
Community Sponsor:
Individual Sponsors:
James & Susan Hunnewell | Pamela & Don Michaelis | Caroline Mortimer
Artwork Descriptions
Thought Artist Video at Story Chapel
Presented in Story Chapel, the Thought Artist Video is one of the first experiences in SOLSTICE. It serves as an invitation to understand how others connect to the Winter Solstice and cycles within their lives and practices. We all encounter the world differently, yet we all endure and embrace the cyclical experience of time and nature. Whether that is confronting life and death or emotional tides, the solstice is a moment and metaphor that brings us closer to ourselves and our lives.
2023 Thought Artists:
Deb Todd Wheeler
Multi-media artist of radical generosity for emotional transformation and reclamation.
www.debtoddwheeler.org
Karin Sprague
Hand-carver of memorials, gravestones, headstones, gravemarkers, and sculptures.
www.karinsprague.com
‘Mwalim’ - Morgan James Peters
Storyteller, Composer, Writer, Musician, Educator
www.daphunkeeprofessor.com
Ricardo Austrich
Director of Landscape Architecture at BSC Group
Eclipse at Hazel Dell
This artwork is inspired by the celestial phenomenon of an eclipse, evoking the iconic image at an intimate scale. Composed of a suspended black disc sculpture, a halo of light, a wall of haze, and the deep visceral tones of the universe, the artwork is an invitation to slow down, meditate, and envelop yourself within the passage from light to dark to light within the quiet space of Hazel Dell.
Solstice Canvas at Bigelow Chapel
The prominent facade is painted with animation and echoed with bespoke sounds to present two new site-specific audio visual pieces. The first, a media poem to the stars, treats the architecture like a pendant of light and bends the scale of the celestial world in an effort to bring visitors closer to themselves. The second is a choreography of darkness and light that turns within the architecture, capturing the harmony of the candle lighting service taking place inside.
Phase Garden at Asa Gray Garden
Phase Garden is an aesthetic exploration of our cosmic neighborhood. Deriving pitch, rhythm, color and more from the relationship between the sun, planets, and various moons, the artwork registers an audio-visual environment based on the cosmic math of our solar system. Utilizing both compositional logic and artistic liberty, we have created a sound and light installation for immersing oneself in these rhythms. It is a place for centering and also considering other centers in space and time.
Hortus Gateway at Central Ave
Four imprinted towers sit at the base of Central and Lawn Ave welcoming visitors to enter the landscape through symmetrical illumination. In collaboration with Mount Auburn’s horticulture caretakers, the towers are carved with flora and forms that are specific to the landscape of the Cemetery. The stately pillars hold representations of balance, endurance, renewal, and longevity; all which are present in the enclosed gardens and landscape of Mount Auburn. As each visitor passes through the entrance, their presence is embraced through an interactive expression of light signifying their arrival and the beginning path of SOLSTICE.
History of Artwork Sites
STORY CHAPEL
Story Chapel and the adjoining Administration Building were designed by Architect Willard T. Sears in 1896-1898. Sears was selected after an architectural design competition for a chapel near the Cemetery entrance that would fit into the site and not conflict with the existing buildings. He described his design as following the "English Perpendicular Style," and he chose red sandstone quarried in Potsdam, New York, for its durability and rich and variegated color. Upon its completion in 1898, Cambridge Chronicle, described the new chapel as “a most beautiful and commodious building…the only purely Gothic type of building this side of the Hudson River and the only one in New England.” In 1936, the chapel was named in honor of the Cemetery’s first president Joseph Story, one of Mount Auburn’s founders and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Story Chapel provides space for funerals and memorial services, programs and events, and can accommodate up to 160 people. The current multi-year masonry and accessibility renovation project began in 2017 and continues a tradition of thoughtful renovations to enhance the building, while preserving its historical integrity.
Story Chapel and Administration Building, Willard T. Sears, March 1896.
Chapel and Administration Building.” Souvenir book indelible photograph, 1901.
HAZEL DELL
Located in the historic area of Mount Auburn, just to the left past the Administration Building and Story Chapel, Hazel Dell is a low, secluded area bounded on the north and east by a tall glacial esker (Indian Ridge Path) and on the south and west by an impressive granite retaining wall and Linden Path. Set into the esker on the north and east are large granite hillside tombs overlooking an open, grassy area with trees and shrubs at each entry. In the 19h century, the center of the Dell was seasonally wet, so the land was regraded to eliminate the boggy areas and in 1862, Mount Auburn staff designed a small circular pond with an ornamental fountain. The pond was edged with granite curbing, reflecting the transition from a rural cemetery design to a managed garden with embellishments meant to attract visitors. Today, Hazel Dell is often referred to as a dry dell, in contrast to the wet kettle pond of Consecration Dell. Individuals buried and commemorated in Hazel Dell include Benjamin Roberts Curtis, a supreme court judge; Theodora Keith, a world traveler who graduated Radcliffe in 1918 and MIT in 1932; Col. Ezra J. Trull, a civil war hero; and Eben N. Horsford, a Harvard professor who invented double-acting baking powder.
Hazel Dell, hand-painted stereograph, c. 1860s.
Hazel Dell, photograph, 1938.
BIGELOW CHAPEL
Mount Auburn’s first building, Bigelow Chapel, was designed in the 1840s as a space for funeral and memorial services, and to exhibit marble sculptures and works of art. Made of local Quincy granite with tall spires reaching toward the sky, the Gothic building fits into the picturesque landscape as intended by the Cemetery’s founders. Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879), one of Mount Auburn’s founders and its second president, designed the Chapel with the assistance of the architect Gridley J. F. Bryant. Bigelow paid special attention to the large stained-glass windows which he incorporated into his initial design. Completed in the 1850s, the interior was later converted into a “Crematory Chapel” in 1899 by Willard Sears, with an open, informal plan meant to appeal to “reform-minded” individuals interested in cremation. In 1924, the firm of Allen and Collins redesigned the interior in a more Medieval Gothic style, reflecting a return to a more traditional setting for funeral services. Most recently in 2018, architects at William Rawn Associates completed a revitalization of the building with a state-of-the-art crematory, viewing room, viewing garden, and magnificent glass addition that accommodates families and connects the building with the landscape. The chapel renovations reflect changing public tastes in architecture as well as changing attitudes towards burial practices, and how we remember and honor the dead. Situated on the plateau of the first hill near the entrance, the Chapel accommodates up to 75 people and continues to serve as a focal point for visitors today.
Bigelow Chapel, 1861, salted paper print, George Kendall Warren, 1861.
Bigelow Chapel on Decoration Day, stereograph, c. 1870s.
ASA GRAY GARDEN
Just inside the Cemetery’s entrance gate and between our two chapels, Asa Gray Garden is a gathering place for Cemetery services and events as well as a popular place for visitors. Designed to be a living environment that is welcoming, comforting, and inspiring in every season, Asa Gray Garden has gone through many incarnations since its creation in 1860. What began as a wet bog was transformed into an ornate Victorian park and later a formal rose garden. The current design, completed in 2018 by Mount Auburn Cemetery and Halvorson Design Partnership, celebrates the lifework of American botanist and Harvard University professor Asa Gray (1810-1888) who is buried at Mount Auburn and known as “the father of American horticulture.” Gray noticed the striking similarities between floras of Eastern North America and East Asia and in the 1840s put forward the theory that many of these plants share common ancestors. To model responsible use of non-native species and to highlight the advantages of using native species, the plants selected for Asa Gray Garden were carefully considered and many are the exact species that were studied by Asa Gray.
Asa Gray Garden, cabinet card, c. 1881.
“Lawn Avenue.” Asa Gray Garden, Souvenir book albertype, 1883.