Mount Auburn Cemetery is one of the most beautiful places in the United States, situated in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the springtime just about now the place is filled with flowering trees, specimen plants, famous landscape design, and a world of white marble monuments and bronze edifices. When I lived in the Boston area as a student I would reserve a day to visit every year. Once I was in the enclosure, I wandered about pretending I was in the heavenly spiritual world of "Summerland." The cemetery houses the tomb of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of "Christian Science," once a major religious force in upper-class Boston. It is also designed with "Spiritualism" in mind, a movement that concentrated on communicating with the blessed spirits of the dead, complete with detailed descriptions of what Heaven looks like. I took my art stuff into Summerland and did drawings of the landscape and monuments, and then returned to my profane dwelling at Brandeis University.
Colored pencil with a lot of Photoshop editing, 4 1/2" x 7 1/2", May 1975.
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