Lakewood Cemetery Welcomes Internationally Renowned Earth Artist Day Schildkret for Midsummer Memory Mandalas
About
Lakewood Cemetery
Welcomes Internationally Renowned Earth Artist Day Schildkret for Midsummer
Memory Mandalas
A Special Event That Includes a Public Art
Installation and Hands-on Workshops to Transform Grief into Beauty Through
Creative Expression
MINNEAPOLIS – As part of its 150th
anniversary celebration this year, Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis will once
again welcome acclaimed earth artist Day Schildkret (@morningaltars) for its Midsummer Memory
Mandalas event — an art installation and hands-on workshops designed
to honor the impermanence of life and transform grief into beauty.
The centerpiece
of the two-day Midsummer Memory Mandalas event will be a free, public earth
art installation created by Schildkret. On the grass near Lakewood’s historic
mosaic chapel, Schildkret will create an approximately 10
X 20-foot mandala as a tribute to love and loss. The public is
invited to watch the creation take shape and talk to the artist as he works.
Schildkret will offer reflections and insights into his creation, touching on
themes of mindfulness, honoring and remembering. Viewers are encouraged to
bring blankets to create their own space to rest and reflect during the
evening’s event, as limited seating will be available.
Schildkret’s
all-natural mandala at Lakewood is designed to be impermanent—just as life
itself is impermanent—and will naturally disperse and fade with changes from
wind, rain and wildlife. For the days and hours leading up to the event,
Schildkret and his team will be foraging Lakewood’s 250 acres to gather local
natural materials—leaves, seeds, feathers, flowers and stones—to be used in the
installation.
Midsummer Memory
Mandalas is part of the Lakewood Experience Series—immersive events
that explore ways to infuse more meaning and creativity into the practices of
dying, death and remembering. More information about the Lakewood Experience
Series can be found here.
In addition to
the public mandala art installation, Schildkret will lead two ticketed hands-on
workshops at Lakewood on Saturday, July 17. At the workshops, participants will
learn his Seven-Step Morning Altars process to create beauty out of grief. Participants
will explore and forage to collect leaves, flowers, stones, bark
and feathers to use as creative materials to design their own memory
mandala, using the earth as their canvas. Tickets are limited and expected
to sell out quickly. TICKETS: Purchase HERE
“Lakewood has a
long history of creating and embracing new traditions,” says Julia Gillis,
director of outreach at Lakewood. “The Midsummer Memory Mandalas event is
becoming a new tradition here at Lakewood — it’s one of the ways we hope to
inspire individuals and families to bring more creativity and meaning to
memorialization. Given all the loss our world and community have suffered this
past year, we feel grateful to be able to bring Day back to Minneapolis to
offer this unique and special experience that’s open to all.”
WHEN:
·
Public
Earth Art Installation – Friday, July 16
·
Hands-on
Workshops (ticketed) – Saturday, July 17
WHERE:
Lakewood
Cemetery
3600 Hennepin
Avenue
Minneapolis, MN
55408
About Day Schildkret and Morning
Altars
Day Schildkret is internationally known for Morning Altars
and has inspired tens of thousands of people of all ages across the globe to be
awed with impermanent earth art. Buzz Feed calls Morning Altars, “a celebration
of nature and life.” Morning Altars is igniting an international movement of
nature, art and ritual with a 7-step practice with over 90k followers on
Instagram and Facebook and trainings, workshops, and installations worldwide.
Day is the author of Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your
Spirit through Nature, Art and Ritual (The Countryman Press) and his
next book, Hello, Goodbye.: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration
and Change will be published by Simon Element, an imprint of Simon
& Schuster in January 2022. To get more information on Day and Morning
Altars, go to www.morningaltars.com