ArtStorming the Art of Remembrance: Heide Hatry

A portrait usually freezes a moment, but what happens when the portrait is made from the life itself? We sit down with artist Heide Hatry, whose work transforms cremation ashes into hauntingly realistic faces using beeswax, encaustic layering, and a level of precision that borders on devotional. She walks us through the moment grief cracked her open, the shock of seeing what “ashes” actually are, and the painstaking early method of sorting bone fragments by tone and placing thousands of particles until a beloved person seems to reappear.

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Music for ArtStorming was written and performed by John Cruikshank.

Transcript

Season Theme And Big Questions

Speaker 8 0:00

Have you ever wondered what makes creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? Is their life really as much fun as it looks from the outside? Hello, I'm your host Lili Pierpont, and this is Art Storming, a podcast about how ideas become paintings or poems, performances or collections. Each episode, I'll chat with a guest from the arts community and we'll explore how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new. In our inaugural season, art Storming the City Different, we dipped our toes into the vast ocean of creativity with a focus on some of our favorite creators of Santa Fe, New Mexico. That conversation was enjoyed by artists and non-artists alike because it showed us how we can all benefit from learning how to generate something from nothing. Dream bigger, charter, new territories, and solve problems in new ways. In season two, we're gonna take that concept of generating our lives with intention to the next level. This season, we're talking about legacy art as legacy, and how the most creative among us tackle this rich and deeply personal subject. Welcome to Art Storming, the Art of Remembrance.

Lili 1:20

Most of us think of a portrait as a way to capture a life in a moment, a click of a shutter or a stroke of oil on canvas. But what if the portrait was made of the life itself? In 2008, following the tragic loss of a close friend, artist, Haida Hatchery found herself pulled back into the unresolved grief of her father's passing. In that space of profound sorrow, she began to experiment with a medium most would find daunting, perhaps even taboo Human ashes using ancient caustic techniques, beeswax and a precision that required sorting thousands of individual particles of remains by tone hide. It creates living images that challenge how we think about mourning, memory, and the physical body. This is a conversation about art as a vessel for the impossible. how we find the courage to look death in the eye and see a familiar face. Looking back.

Speaker 14 2:20

so i'll be Art storming today with Haida Hatchery and, I've been so looking forward to this. You know, we've had to reschedule a couple of times, but it's just made my anticipation all that greater because what you are up to, and unfortunately the people listening can't see unless they go to your website. But what you are doing with your artwork is such the complete essence of what we are doing in this podcast series in the sense that you are taking the whole conversation about remembrance and death as muse and. Artful exit to another whole level. So I'm gonna use that as a very sort of sideways introduction. But, how on earth did you get started doing this? I know I did read a little bit of your bio and, I know that one of the things we share is that we both lost our fathers who were meant the world to us. And I know That this whole project, even though it's 30 years for almost 40 years later, grew out of that loss that has stayed with me and in various permutations ever since. And I know that the loss of your father and then a subsequent friend is partly what got you on the. Path of icons in Ash. So say more about that.

Speaker 15 3:46

Yeah. First, thank you so much for inviting me to this. I love what you do and I feel very connected. Maybe because of our fathers, maybe because for you it seemed to have been the same thing as for me, like that death has been a long time ago and still it is somehow. And we even did something what preoccupied our life pretty much, or preoccupies to be more correct. I started in 2008 when one of my best friends committed suicide and I think that, that pain. Because for me it was completely unexpected that brought back the pain of my dad, I was completely shocked. But in addition to that shock, there was suddenly this grief from my father's death creeping up and it was so intense. Suddenly first, I think the first few weeks I. Only was shocked about the death of my friend, but then I was constantly thinking about my dad, and I hadn't thought about him for quite a while. And, and it became so intense, this grief and this inability to function. Even that I, that I had suddenly this idea, ideas always come to me in this kind of chalky way that suddenly I know what I have to do and I woke up and suddenly I thought. I will make portraits out of their ashes. And I later realized how it developed, because at that time I was working on, a kind of ENC stick portraiture, Caustic is when you use some pigments, pigments, mix it with wax, and then you have a waxy color What I did is I used cleaned be wax and I try to make a kind of Renaissance portrait In order to get it as close to real as possible. So the painting was not only a flat painting, but a kind of relief painting. And, what I learned about, paintings of skin, it's not one color. That's the problem with makeup. If you have some kind of brown tone, you just look dead because everything is one brown tone. But real. Skin color is showing all these things which are underneath your skin. Not that the skin is translucent, but it shines through somehow. You see green, you see red, you see yellow, you see all these colors. It's extremely colorful, and therefore it's so difficult to paint. And I love Renaissance painting. I also taught Renaissance painting, as an art teacher. And I love this layering to make it happen that you have this feeling that you are looking through the skin. But before that I made this portraits, out of, actual pig skin, which. also was this attempt to find a way to make a portrait as realistic as possible, and. Then I had the idea to use wax because it, you can, use a layer of wax, then you can place the pigments exactly where you need them, and then you do put another layer of wax on it and another layer of wax. I can, send you a picture of that so that you can, put it on your, on this website so that they can see what I'm talking about. Yeah. So that, with this technique, I, I layered it and layered it and layered it. And there's always a thin layer of wax on top of each other, but in between there are sprinkled these pigments and it looks just like really wonderful and real. I mean, it looks a little bit more like a dead person because they become also so waxy. and that feels like a little. Unreal. But there is something about it which is really incredibly real.

Speaker 14 8:19

Yeah.

What Ashes Really Look Like

Speaker 15 8:19

And when I coming to the hair, I, didn't know how to do the hair because at the beginning I put uh, I lay off wax on top of the hair and it looked stupid. And then I had noticed that when the wax is still, Hot but not fluid. The pigments connect to that wax in a way, like dust connects to a candle. You can't get it off, but it's not sun in, but it's just on top of the surface. And that was so intense and it looked so wonderfully, like hair, like an another material that I really loved that. So that was the one part of my situation regarding art. The other part of my situation at that point, which was a few weeks before, before I had the idea, was I was invited to a friend and he, had just lost his wife and he had received the earn from the funeral home. And, He had it on his mental place and he said she's here. And I said, what do you mean? And she, he said, her ashes are here. And I said, what? What do you mean you have your ashes? Her ashes in your house? And he said, yeah, here in this beautiful urn. And I said, can I look into it? And he said, yeah, of course. And I opened it. It had this lid easy to open just like a, it was a ceramic base like thing with a lid. And I opened it and there was a plastic bag in it and a round, metal plate so that it's clear that that ashes is from that person. And in the plastic bag, I opened that and there were little bones, just pieces of little bones, and I. I was so shocked. I, I don't know what I expected. I expected like, sand stuff or ashes, but not bones. and I only learned later, how that works how that stuff looks in an urn. Yeah. Do you know what that is? Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't know. I, and when I first tried to, do my project, I just needed to have ashes to test what I was imagining, and I didn't know where to get the ashes from and I thought, Cremator of animals are perfect because I know several people who have animals and have cremated them, and it's much cheaper if you cremate them together with other animals, but only your own. And then in that case, you don't want the ashes, but it will be used for something else. And, in my case, or I, I thought I go to that kind of. Crematory and they will have exactly what I need and I call the cremator and, tell them what I want to do. And they all say, wow, no, we don't do that. this is whatever. And then I went back to my, style of lying when I need something as an artist and say that I am an artist. So I came up with this idea to say. I am a biologist. I, work at whatever university and we are doing a study of fertilizer and I know that in animal ashes there's a lot of potassium and our a. orchids we just need to test if with a higher amount of potassium, they grow better. And the person said, yes, of course. Of course you can have consciousness, whatever you want. So I went there and that was the most shocking thing for me because I had no idea about anything of that. So it was a huge crematory, at one floor. like a huge hall. And in the middle of that crematory was a huge oven and he had just done a, a huge part of the animals. And that there were a, in, in that huge hall, all the trays of the animals were lying around. the wall. He had just placed them around it. They were just done and were sitting in that Utah, but there were not trays with a pile of ashes. There were trays with the complete beautiful skeleton of each animal, so you could see the cat. This was a dog. You could see it all was. I was so shocked also to imagine that we, when we are burned and the tray is pulled out, there is actually the entire body, the entire skeleton. You can even see how big that person was, and then they take it and put it in a grinder and that grinded stuff that's in the urn. So that is pure, absolutely pure. Bones, there's nothing but bones and the, it depends on which I'm crematory. I have worked with many crematories in the meantime. Some of them grinded like super fine dust and some of them grinded like really big chunks. And yeah, maybe that was, the wrong time to tell that story because people don't even know what I'm doing, Maybe I start now with what I'm doing.

Speaker 14 14:00

Yeah, that'd be great. I got that.

Speaker 15 14:04

So

Speaker 14 14:04

let me just connect you where you were, because I know you went through a lot of places. But so you're at your friend's house, his wife has died, you've opened up the urn, you've looked at the ashes. You notice that there are actually pieces of bone and another material there, and this somehow feeds into your idea

Building A Portrait From Particles

Speaker 15 14:20

of what you're going to do next. So when I had, this idea, when I woke up and. I don't think that it was a dream because I normally remember my dreams and, and I had great art dreams. I have them usually in the morning, not connected to a dream, but lying in bed in the morning and just thinking, and then that pops up. And, I had the idea to use. They are cremated ashes and make a realistic kind of portrait. But of course, I didn't have any idea how that works, but that what I said. That was the explanation why I think I came up with this idea because I had worked on this wax portrait and I had noticed that if the, the particles are connected on the top, that that. Looks amazing. So these two things, and then I, yeah, and then seeing that portrait, that urn of his mental place and looking at the ashes. And very importantly next to that, urn was a absolutely beautiful black and white photo of his wife. And I connect. That was just connected in my brain without me doing anything. It was just flap there. and I love these kind of things. And then of course when you have something like that, you have to figure out how to do it. so I got the ashes from that animal crematory. And then I tried to do this for about six months, and in these six months I did nothing but reading the emails we had exchanged, looking at pictures, yelling at them, crying it. It was horrible. But at the same time, I also figured out how to make These portraits and I had the idea to use bees wax as I did before, but then place the particles which were big, which are bigger than pigments into the bees wax, and just to how to do that was already not so easy because if you heat it up and it's fluid, the ashes just sink down. And if it's not warm enough, it doesn't connect, so it has to be in a certain temperature and you can't put all the, the wax in a

17:01

certain

Portraits As Grief Relief

Speaker 15 17:01

temperature. You can only do it where you are working. And, so first I, I painted, An oil painting first, an oil painting, and then I realized it'll not dry forever. So I painted another painting in, acrylic as realistic as possible. Then I put a layer on wax on it, and then I could see through what I had painted, and then I placed. the single particles of that ashes onto it. But before that, it doesn't help if you place them onto it because how would you make a difference between darker and brighter parts? So first I divided all the pieces of ashes I had into. Really dark. There are things which are completely black because of the, way it is burned. There are pieces which are dark gray and all the way to really bright bone, and I de divided them so that I would have these different kinds of colors. And then I placed them like a mosaic onto the blacks. And I only work on, uh, maybe a. Water of an inch in that quarter of an inch. I heated up with a tool which you use in caustic, and tried to get it right with the temperature, not too hard, not too cold, so that I could place every single piece. So I placed thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces for one portrait, and that was a extremely meditative project. Process. And I think that process, or I thought back then that process made it happen that I was, after these six months, so consoled by the portraits, when the portraits were there, I, I felt like, wow, this is a solution to grief. I was so, so hap not happy, but I was, I was suddenly able to live again and to, to. Be normal again and to understand that they are dead and that it's not my fault and that, life is difficult and that life goes on. And, and I was of course still super, super sad, but I was not sick. Sad. I was really, before that I. I was just completely out of my mind and I was convinced that this painstaking meditative process has helped me to, to feel that way about the portraits after they were done. And then I had an assistant, he was 24 years old. and his mother had died when he was even younger. And they had, they hadn't told him that she's in the hospital so sick that she might die. He expected her to be in the hospital and then come back and he felt totally betrayed from his father, especially who, was the reason why he wasn't told. And he, he just. Got completely insane. And he went into the Metro Hospital and it was really, really difficult. And he came back and walking with him was difficult and he said one day, can you make a portrait for me? I think it would really help me. And I thought, no, I don't want to do that. You are my assistant. I need you to do the work I have to do. I don't want to sit there For eight hours a day or 16 hours a day to make that portrait for you. you cannot even work so much for me in years to pay me back, basically. And it one, one thing why I was so against to do it because it was such a. Difficult thing for me regarding my body because you cannot just stand at an isle and do that. You have to bend down and place these particles onto the max. And if you do that an hour, that's no problem. But if you do that eight hours a day, you can almost not move on the next day and you have to do it for weeks. So. That was the biggest reason why I didn't want to do it. I had.

Speaker 12 21:35

I had, invented ways of making it not so terrible. And so I was normally, I was lying on my big table and in front of the big table I had a smaller table so that everything was as relaxed as possible. And I had, a thing what held my head so that I didn't have to hold my head by myself because that is really heavy ahead. In any case, so I didn't want to do it. and I said, no, I don't have time And he insisted, and I did it at the end, at one point, and I gave it to him at his boss, the end. It was, unbelievable. I, he cried and he was so happy to get it. But then he, he texted me almost every day. Said, I can feel her, I can feel her presence. it's, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever had in my life, and it's just absolutely wonderful. and he thanked me every day.

Speaker 13 22:36

lemme ask you a question. So did he watch you in process or did you, just present it to him.

Speaker 12 22:41

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 13 22:42

Wow. I said,

Speaker 12 22:42

I don't do it. And then I saw that he was struggling so much and I thought if this portrait would help him, I, I should do it.

Speaker 13 22:55

Yeah.

Speaker 12 22:56

Also at that point I probably thought, maybe if that would help somebody else, that would be such a beautiful thing to do. But I was still convinced that it wouldn't help other people, and I was still convinced that the work was the thing which helped me any case when this reaction happened. I thought, oh my God, I have to do it. I have to do it for other people. And I started to, I knew a few people who were grieving a lot, and I suggested that I would do that for them. And some of them agreed just to test it, and they felt exactly the same way. I couldn't believe it. I, I, I still don't know why. I think, it has to do a little bit with relics. It, this, this belief in, in relics does something in the brain. I mean, everything. I was at. I was at one point thinking Matter matters. It's really important, but of course it's all in your brain because if you know these are the ashes of a certain person, it's a different feeling. Then if you see something, you don't know what it is and you therefore might not feel anything. So matter might matter, but only if you know what the situation is.

Speaker 13 24:22

It's just that I have a million questions first of all, the portraits, which some of them are behind you and I can see, and because they are sort of black and white and ethereal, the way old photographs kind of are, they have this kind of ghostly other worldly quality to them. So what's so amazing to me is that matter matters and you're looking at an image of that person at a particular moment in time because a photograph captures a particular memory. So if you're looking at an urn and you matter matters, and you're having the experience of that, person's physical presence. your memory can go anywhere you want with it, but when you're presented with an image of that person at a particular moment in time with a particular expression, I mean, how on earth do you decide or does the person does A person who wants to commission you decide which image. Are you gonna have, frozen in time forever? That's one question. And then the other question is, how on earth, I mean, how different is it for you to do somebody that you knew and intimately versus somebody that you don't know except from this one snapshot image?

Speaker 12 26:06

So, normally when I, I've created this business where because I, I felt. This is what I have to do. If I have the ability to help somebody getting through this horrible time in somebody's life. I have to do that. And, when somebody gives me, or somebody, gives me a job to do a portrait, the first thing we do is we go through images. Together, or they sent me some and I tell them, first I tell them, choose your favorite and then choose five or 10, which you would also like. And because there are certain things which make that picture good or not. If you have not the perfect photo for that picture, I can do whatever I want. It'll not be a perfect picture. So one of the things is that, the mouth is closed. When you look in a, in, when you go to a museum and you look. Every portraiture, they have all closed masses because you don't want to look in a hole in a body, and it becomes so fast a caricature, and I want to make an artwork and not, as lively as possible. So when people don't have a photo with closed mouth, I have photoshopped the mouth to be closed when they are smiling or something, or the other form. When you think about a Renoir, he's also in a museum, but he often makes people smile. But then the picture is somewhat blurry and you don't see the single tools. So that is what I did. So when somebody doesn't have a, a picture where the person is only smiling without showing the teeth, Then I do that, but I make it blurry. And then there's a, a whitish area between the lips and that's totally fine. But if you see these single teeth, it becomes just bad. I think, and I mean, I was very religious at the beginning, about how the portrait has to look like now. I'm more, if a person now says, but I want this picture, I say, okay. And at the beginning, that is almost now eight years ago, I said, then I don't do it because I wanted. It's to be perfect, I didn't want an artwork to leave my studio when it is not a hundred percent perfect.

28:56

is not

Speaker 12 28:57

I provide the information. I say this would be the best outcome in my opinion. But you know the person maybe that is not what you feel like that is representing her. When she always laughed and there's not a single picture where she didn't laugh, uh, then whatever. But even at the beginning. I had a friend who had a

29:20

father

Speaker 12 29:21

who always laughed and he said, I, I went through every single picture and there is not a single picture where he doesn't love, but I also understand that you don't want to show the teeth. So I showed him what I photoshopped and if that is okay, and he could recognize his father as it. Exactly him. So I use that. but that doesn't exactly answer the, the question you had, this frozen moment in time, every photograph is a frozen moment in time and we associate. in the first place, of course, that froze moment and remember what happened and if it was at a birthday or whatever, where that picture was taken. But, it also includes all what you know about the person as a full photograph does. it's still that person. It is from a certain time, but it is still that person. And I was asked that before, would you, why don't you make, a landscape the person liked I refuse to do that at the beginning. If now somebody asked, I would do that. it doesn't matter if that is what the people want. it's fine, but I think, the effect, the consoling effect is that these indistinguishable particles become that person again. And you could, you can look at the person and it doesn't matter what picture it is, if that is a picture from when she was 20 or when she was 80, that person looks back at you. The ashes look back at you, and that is what is so. Touching or what starts this communication. You can actually talk to these pictures and it feels like they listen to you. It's really a completely different thing. And speaking of, I was just seeing

31:24

The application of the pigment.

Speaker 12 31:27

The, the particles are put together in this mosaic way. And I was, I only learned that later, but I, I was so fascinated by that. I looked up the definition of mosaic and Moses went on the hill and, received this,

Speaker 13 31:47

tablet, right.

Speaker 12 31:49

Yeah, the content for Writing these tablets on this hill, and in the meantime, the people down there in the valley were dancing around the golden calf and then he comes down and he just got all this information from God and now these idiots are. Doing not what they're supposed to do. And he was so angry. He threw these, panels on the floor and they broke a thousand pieces. And then he put them together. He, Moses put these pieces together, mosaic, and made them whole again. And I'm making these people whole again. That just put my

When The Artist Knew Them

Speaker 13 32:30

life so much about this. Whoa. That is so amazing. and I wish that we were. Doing video because it's so incredibly touching to see how moved you are as you speak about this. And I, I can feel it and I hope that it, translates out there in just our conversation because, several times through the course of your recounting of this, you have been really visibly moved and it moves me and I'm trying to hold it together so that we just don't. Dissolve into tears here. But you know, I have to say that there, it's tears of recognition and it's a completely different emotion than one I'm accustomed to feeling because I think what you're doing with this artwork is tapping into something that very rarely have we, in any tradition that I know of, have ever. experimented with, you know, this almost like, uh, reinhabiting or revitalizing these cremains and we think of, you know, ashes to ashes. And I love when the, the comment that you make on your website, ashes to Art. and so it's ashes to ashes and ashes to art. and then that, that communication again for, for the individual who has commissioned you to do that. So I feel like we almost just all need to take a moment here and take in everything that you've just said because it's really profound. It's really profound what you're doing, and just the idea, and I'd like you to even restate it again. So you're taking the ashes, you're reconstituting them into the likeness. Of the individual at the direction of somebody who is giving you an image that reminds them of the, so there are like so many layers of this communication of going back and forth, and then you become like this medium, like a literal medium, and the medium itself are the ashes. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I didn't, I didn't think of that so far. Yeah. So, I mean, like, it's just like the layers of this are so crazy

Speaker 12 35:11

and I to, to answer your other question, when I make it, the difference between making it for somebody or having known that person, it's a huge difference. my French Diane died at the age of 51 and her husband gave me her ashes, and I couldn't do it. like my, my hands didn't work. I think it was so touching because I was with her just a few days before she died, and I, when I was with her, I thought she. Had died while I was there, and then suddenly she woke up again. But I was sure she, she's dead. and it was dramatic and horrific. And I have never been in a situation like that. Somebody so close, to death. and I loved her and she was a, a wonderful artist. And, and she was way too young. and she didn't want to die. That was a really big. painful part of it, and whenever I sat down to, to make it, I had to cry and I just couldn't do it. I had to stop and what I did, I'm normally pretty reliably good in painting. I just, it was like, I don't even know how to paint it. Was, it, I couldn't, it didn't look like. It didn't look like her. It didn't look like her. I have this beautiful sense of how to do something so that it looks like what I want to do, and it didn't work at all. And that was, I think that was very, because I, I saw her more often I was, I experienced this, this death situation. Almost. And in, September last year, the year before last year, my best friend in Belinda, also very young, and we didn't see each other so often and her, and I had to make a lot of portraits because her children wanted it. Her husband wanted it, friends wanted it. She was very. Connected in a social situation, and she was an artist herself and very similar to what I do. We loved each other on the first side. I saw, an exhibition of hers in Berlin when I, when I moved to Berlin and, and I asked the, wow, this is amazing work. Who is that? And he said, do you want to meet her? And I said, yes. And he called her and 20 minutes later we met. And we were the closest friends from that point. And her work is just exactly like mine. In any case, she, when she died, that was, um, kind of longer period. Although I, I absolutely didn't believe, I think we too, she and I, we were the only ones who believed she wouldn't die. And then we were wrong. maybe because I had to make more portraits, or over these years it has changed because I made so many portraits that, it has become. A little less intense for the single one, but I could, I could make them, it was much, much more painful than somebody else. And it, I had my difficulties, but I made several. And, and the one for Diane, uh, I still didn't finish. I couldn't.

Speaker 13 38:54

It's so interesting. Do you think it's because Diane didn't want, I mean, I know this kind of is taking us into another whole category that could be, you know, a woo woo kind of category, but do you, do you feel like that you're communicating with the people that you're portraying, do they inform how you do your work or. Or as you're doing

39:16

it? I, I,

Scaling The Work For Access

Speaker 12 39:17

I think the ones I know, yes, but the ones I don't know. I mean, I talk to people and, there was whatever I can, I can just give you a few examples. there was this father of a son who wanted a portrait and he sends me a picture where he has military clothing, clothing on, and, I asked him. Was he in the military and was that connected to his death? And he said, I don't want to talk about it. So there are people there. I mean, there was on the phone often I'm talking to on the phone. It's not like it would be documented in an email or something. But, some people just don't want to have to do anything with me. They want me just to do my job, but there are also people, like one, mother calls me and she says, my daughter's 13 years old. She will die and I will not be able to bear it, to have this sassy girl in an urn. And I want to send you the ashes on the day I get it. I want you to make the portrait as soon as you can. And then I want to hang that picture on the wall instead of having her ashes in the on. And, that was difficult, although I didn't know the girl, but she had told me quite a few things and that was that was as if I knew her, and that was also one of the very painful things.

Speaker 13 40:50

Wow. Wow. And so as emotional as this is for you, you continue to make it a mission of yours to do this work for people? Yeah.

Speaker 12 41:02

so I, I did it at the beginning in this mosaic technique. And, I just couldn't do it. physically I couldn't make so many portraits in a. Just with my body. So I, I tried to train other artists to help me with that, and it was really difficult because, either the people I found who would, whom I thought would be able to do it, didn't want to do it. Had really a problem with touching ashes. believe that there is, that you are not supposed to do that touching ashes, that there is the ghost still connected to the ashes, that whatever. There were several people who just couldn't do it. and others, they just didn't do a good job. And the problem is you cannot test around. I mean, the material you have is so sacred that you cannot just try it.

42:08

That doesn't work

Speaker 12 42:10

When you, I mean, I, I let them all try it first with animal ashes. but in that state, I already realized, that doesn't work. but. I basically didn't find anybody who did it in a way I was satisfied with. So. I could only do it. So I raised my prices extensively and then, but I, I thought that's not the point. The point is not that one person or whatever, 12 people a year can have, can have a portrait. The idea was that hundreds of people can be consoled by that, and that is when I had the idea to find a different technique. I thought the technique I came up with was so brilliant that I got a patent for it. And now these are not mosaics anymore, but they are ash transfers, which are made in a certain way. And and when I show you an ash transfer or a mosaic through the video, you will probably not be able to distinguish them. I mean, I might, but a lot of people who are even artists cannot see the, the difference. And one can be done pretty fast and one takes forever.

Speaker 13 43:33

Like is it almost like a, a screen printing technique where you're lay Well, like the way screen printing, you know, you sort of do one color over another color.

Speaker 12 43:43

Yeah, it is, it is not screen printing, but it is like. Printing or like transferring a picture from one point to the other. And I'm, I'm super happy with the result and, and. That way they can be affordable for everybody. And that was what I wanted. I didn't want to do some kind of art what only rich people can afford.

Speaker 13 44:13

so does it require the entire. Quantity of ashes to do a piece because, you know, there's so many different things that people can do. They can, they make with certain amount, they can turn them into a diamond and they can make them into stones. So how does that work

The Ethical Weight Of German History

Speaker 12 44:28

It's perfect. You need, a small handful and you have basically a big base for, basically Nothing. It just imagine. A handful of salt. you'll throw it on the table and then you'll make sure that all the, the entire area is covered with salt. You don't need so much because, if. All particles are just next to each other and not on top of each other. Right? It, it becomes a quite a big surface. So it's, it's, I don't need much and I encourage people to do other things with the ashes as well. What I also like about, the portraits beside what we talked about, is that you compared to the situation when you are, burying somebody or burying the ashes. or inserting them in whatever, a place, a niche for s or something, you, they are out of your house and they are, you need to go there and you will, never have a relationship with it. But this is an artwork and you have this relationship to an artwork as, as you have a relationship to a a person. It changes over time. but you have access to it and if you don't feel like it and at the beginning it was hard to, to look at the person every day. So you just take it and put it in your closet until you want to look at it again. I mean, it's, it's just, and if you move, who is living in the same place for forever? Nowadays we are all on the road. You can just. Take it with you. You can't take a grave with you. Maybe you can take an urn with you and put it in a different, cemetery. I dunno. But in any case, it's also practical is what I meant. But I wanted to tell you something about, My struggles when, from making it for myself to the point when I make it for other people. And the biggest struggle was that I'm German because,

Speaker 13 46:37

say more about that. I, so what is being German? Say more? Yeah. That's intriguing.

Speaker 12 46:41

Yeah. I'm a I A I want history. we, Treated people, and especially the, dead people in, people in horrific race without any question. But I did a project before that where I used mainly pigskin for, making all kinds of things. And I was criticized for me being a German, using pigskin as the Nazis used to of people for lamp shades or something. And I had absolutely not thought about that. When I did that, and I was shocked that people would have this idea

Speaker 6 47:28

To give pigs a life

Speaker 11 47:33

mm-hmm.

Speaker 6 47:34

In a human form. But, when I was thinking without talking to anybody about the project, I myself realized that that is impossible to make an artwork out of that because. that would be basically the same what Nazis did. And then I started to research what Nazis actually did, and that was beyond shocking. Um, I mean, we, we know a lot of things. what horrible, things they did. And one of the most, I don't know, did you read Viktor Frankl?

Speaker 11 48:08

Yes.

Speaker 6 48:09

That book, and I mean in Germany you have for years and years and years, at least in my generation in history, you only talk about Nazi Nazism. And the only thing what history class wants to achieve is that we understand that this is not supposed to ever happen again. So my generation our generation is responsible that this is never going to happen again. So, in these years of history classes, we of course learned lots of things about what Nazis did and how it might have happened that an entire country can become fascist. And what are the ways you can. sentence, what to do when it's developing in this direction, and I'm, I'm very grateful for that. But I also feel extremely guilty for our history. Even though I was born only a generation after the war had ended. and my dad. was too young to be in the war. nevertheless, this history classes made our whole generation completely feel guilty. and when I went somewhere, I, I tried to not tell people that I'm from Germany because I was so embarrassed and, And then when I was thinking about making an art project out of these ash portraits, I realized I can't do this. I stopped completely the project and didn't offer it to anybody or whatever, but it was so intense in me. I really wanted to do it. I, after this experience with, with my friend, I thought that is really something beautiful to do. and I stopped. And then I talked to my friend Louisa Valenzuela. She's a writer from, Argentina, one of the most wonderful people I know, and in her writing, she's also often addressing horrific situations and turning them then in a way, aesthetically to something you can even enjoy to read. And She said, no. You, you have to do it. And it's a, it's a wonderful idea. And, and then I, I thought I need to disguise that I'm German so that. So that nobody will feel uncomfortable. And I had the idea basically what Siri Sbit wrote in her the blazing world where an artist, had the idea to ask an actor who would be the artist who makes the stuff. I would make it and I would promote him and I would do everything so that, this is a successful thing. But I would be out of the picture. And then I was talking to Louisa again and she said, are you crazy? Yeah. If you do that and it comes out, then you are. Really in trouble, and then people feel really betrayed. And that is when I started researching, what Nazis actually did. And I learned that, they had these millions of burned skeletons or maybe they were sometimes not even burned, but Yeah, to burned. they burned them. But the portal thing was that the. They didn't even have to burn so much because they first staffed them to death and then they burned them. but what totally shocked me. I mean, the, the, all these things totally shocked me. No, don't get me wrong. but what I had not known was that in these concentration camps. When the, when these burned bodies were coming out of the, of the ovens, they didn't have grinders. So the people in the camps had to crash the bones with hammers. Can you imagine that? And then. They had to do it so fine that they can, throw it into the rivers nearby, and it, they, it had to be so fine that it would just stay on the surface and that the river with this enormous material wouldn't be filled up so it would flow into the ocean. And that meant that they, they. Didn't even exist. it was a technique to make them not have existed, and I found that so brutal. I, I just couldn't believe that, and I was so shocked about that, that I thought, okay, I'm doing exactly the opposite.

Speaker 11 53:09

Yeah. I'm,

Speaker 6 53:10

I'm. Keeping that person in a way alive and I make sure that it's not forgotten that that person is not forgotten, and I make sure that everybody knows how that person looked like and that person is completely honored.

Relics And Planning Ahead

Speaker 11 53:30

It is so important, what you just said. And one of the things that we've been exploring in this series is that legacy is not just about something positive that we leave behind it. Sometimes it's about interrupting a negative legacy that has been going on that has caused. Intergenerational trauma and that there is an a way to interrupt that and reconstitute it in a way that is life enhancing and life giving. And what you've just described is a really beautiful example of that. And thank you again for your courage to talk about something that is Absolutely. I mean it, death in and of itself is confronting enough, but what you've just described and what you've had the courage to share with us is, The way that you have so deeply considered the impact of this on people who engage with your work. And so thank you. It's a, it's really so beautiful and it's so important what you're doing. I just, yeah, say more.

Speaker 6 54:35

it's something why I, I always ask myself, why is it that. People respond so intensely to, to, these works because, I have made a lot of artwork and normally I couldn't care less what, what people think about it. I just make it because I have the idea and I think the idea is great and then I do it and then people react or whatever. And it's not important to me. The important thing for me is to, to make it. But, I was just wondering why these things have this impact on the people and why they feel so intensely when they have this portrait. I was a rare book seller for 20 years in Heidelberg Germany. before I became an artist here as people who like books, they like it when the author has inscribed it to either somebody important, like Kafka has inscribed something to Brock and that book for a bookseller is. Was a lot of money because Kafka had it in his hands and Paul had the book in his hands. And it just is so powerful and meaningful and, and it's, it's all it, because it is so powerful and meaningful, it also becomes much more valuable. So rare booksellers are interested in selling these kind of stuff because it makes more. Whatever. But or for me personally, when somebody inscribes a book for me, I'm totally thrilled. I love it. I hunt even, or this is a, this is one of my, my, maybe hobbies. Get people, inscribed books to me, people I love and I love literature and I love poetry, and I, I, I love books. And, that is one thing that something, what was touched by somebody else whom you, valued or value is. It means more to you. when somebody died and you get their code. For example, I got the code from my best friend in, in Berlin. Her son gave it to me. It's, it's made out of raccoons. and I love this code so much. It's not a code, it's an artifact from her to me And I know how much she loved that code, and I love it even more. Because it's hard code and this connection from the physical body to what is given to us from somebody in a physical way is, has some kind of deeper meaning than if it was exactly the same book. But, I bought it in a bookstore. It's such a huge difference, and therefore to have a part made out the ashes of the person that, of the only thing we have left from that person in a physical sense, and then making this new physical object that I find interesting and also that as soon as a person is dead. It turns into an object before that was, it was a subject, and then it's an object. And you have to, you have the unpleasant task to get rid of it in some way or do something with it. And, to the object I make is Just a transformed object of that object

Speaker 11 58:23

So it's the object into a subject into, object into subject. Which makes me think of one more thing and then I can't believe we're out of time already, but, it would be so cool. Or have you had an experience where somebody before they die, obviously you can't. Complete the commission until you have their ashes. But I'm envisioning a time where people might in advance, decide that they want this created. so a family gets together and they decide, which photograph of me are we going to have turned into this portrait? And then it becomes like. Even another layer added to the continuity of the whole

Speaker 6 58:56

project. That that is the best. That is the best. And I absolutely love it when that happens. And I, but of course you don't know, if it will happen. I mean, then something other might happen. whatever life goes on. People changes their views, and if the person is dead, the person can't say anything anymore. And not everybody acknowledges their ambitious, but there are several people who, who told their, their kids that they want that. friends or, or people I know, or people who told me that they want to do it. And that is, I think that is the most beautiful, beautiful thing. But I, also wanted to talk about my book. Oh, I made a book, about that. did I not send that to you?

Speaker 11 59:46

No, I, I would love, uh, an in scratch copy, please.

Speaker 9 59:49

Okay.

Speaker 6 59:52

will get one. so I can show you first my dad.

Speaker 11 59:57

Oh, wow.

Speaker 6 1:00:00

And then I can show you my friend, the reason why I started to do the whole thing.

Speaker 11 1:00:07

Oh, he's beautiful.

Speaker 6 1:00:11

And then I have invited to, to this book,

Speaker 11 1:00:17

a bunch of people talking about death.

Speaker 6 1:00:20

some of them are really, um, uh, even famous people. Some of them are specialists for something. For example, there are wonderful writers included. it, these are just meditations basically about death from different points of view. and everybody who wants or who has a portrait made by me gets the book for free, and here is the portrait of their beloved one on it.

Speaker 11 1:00:49

Oh, that is so cool. Hi there. Oh my God. Well, thank you so much, Heidi.

Speaker 6 1:00:56

Uh, it was, it was fun talking to you.

Speaker 10 1:00:58

Alright, Heidi, so great to meet you and, um, to be continued. Thank you for inviting me. it's been such a pleasure.

Speaker 5 1:01:06

So thanks for joining us today. Art Storming is brought to you and supported by Art Bridge, nm. And listeners like you look for us on your favorite podcast platforms or wherever you listen. Your subscriptions, likes, comments, and shares. Help us to reach more listeners and attract the support we need to thrive in these challenging times. If you love what you hear, please consider making a contribution. We rely on your help to keep these conversations going. Every dollar you contribute goes directly into programs that support our mission, and we've been offered a matching grant that will match every dollar that you contribute. That means more compelling stories, more in-depth articles, and an even greater impact on our community. Please visit our website@www.art bridge nm.org and thank you so much for being an essential part of our work.