Commemorative Characters, Poster

With outdoor spaces becoming more precious during the pandemic, cemeteries (a source of historical curiosity for me) have continued to remain unpopulated with the living.

 

For years I’ve passed by Rosedale Cemetery located in Montclair NJ. Time crunches always interfered with having the time to go in—until COVID struck. Any cemetery that predates the Civil War is sure to have headstones and mausoleums that boast examples of historical typography spanning over 180 years.

 

A majority of the letterforms photographed for this project predate the 1940’s. While the general public may see the record of a life once lived, I see beautiful surface textures created within individual weathered letters. Environmental conditions have altered the stone in ways that has given character and life to an otherwise neutral surface. The intermingling of moss, lichen, and staining from rain, warms up an otherwise cold surface and breathes life into an object typically meant sadness and memorializing.

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In addition to creating this poster I also decided to update the cemetery‘s logo to reflect a more contemporary treatment with classical forms.