An exploration of Life Art
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In Fragments is an exploration of Life Art
Created by Jonathan Jennings Harris
    Ritual 10
    A ritual to craft a funeral urn for the cremated remains of my mother
    • Essay
    • Reflection
    • Pictogram
    • Tools
    • People
    • Places
    • Music
    • Stills
    • Credits
    View film (7:40)
    “You don’t write the songs anyhow.”
    — Leonard Cohen

    After witnessing my mother’s death and cremation, these rituals, which previously carried a kind of conceptual or cerebral detachment, suddenly took on a newly visceral reality.

    The indelible images of Space Suit were imprinted in my memory — the furnace, the fire, the metal rod, the ashes, the sifting, the sorting, the precision, the care.

    Years earlier, I’d been introduced by a friend named Vera to a glass artist named Ethan Bond-Watts, whose art show in Burlington she and I had once attended together. When my mother was in the ICU at the hospital in Burlington, there was a meditation chapel just down the hallway, where I took respite multiple times. It was adorned with one of Ethan’s beautiful glass installations.

    • Glass installation by Ethan Bond-Watts — UVM Medical Center

    I contacted Ethan to inquire about making glass together. When we met up one early spring evening in a bird sanctuary a little south of here, we built a small fire in the woods at the edge of the water, and cooked a simple dinner of steak and broccoli together on the open flames.

    • First dinner with Ethan

    I told him about my mother’s recent death and cremation, and described the ritual journey that I had begun about six months before. I described my wish to make glass using the materials of our land — mixing crushed-up linestone powder and other special elements with my mother’s cremated remains.

    Neither of us realizing at the time what an odyssey we were about to begin, we agreed to work together in this way.

    This ritual presents Ethan in his element — a master glass artist at work, virtuosically crafting a funeral urn using his faithful collection of tools.

    Jacks; Shears; Pontil; Blow Pipe; Tweezers

    Working with his helper, Kraig Richard, Ethan moves like a dancer at AO Glass, a nearby glass shop in Burlington, while creating the beautiful vessel.

    • Greeting the furnace
    • Gathering glass
    • Cooling the blow pipe
    • Adding the pigment

    Using a trick and a tool he picked up in Venice, he punctures the gummy glass with a spiraling series of air pockets in a Fibonacci distribution, rendered in my mother’s favorite color palette of pinks, violets, and blues.

    • Shaping the vessel
    • Pinching the neck
    • Filling the body
    • Adding the lip
    Finishing

    The aesthetic parallels with the cremation are striking:

    the industrial setting, the blazing furnace, the metal rod, the piles of powder, the transformation of materials, the fire, the persistence, the care

    Once completed, the vessel shifts to High Acres Farm, where my sister and I funnel our mother’s cremated remains into Ethan’s newly crafted vase.

    • Wooden altar
    • Children’s work

    For me, this ritual carries a double request — a request of Ethan to make me a literal vessel to hold my mother’s ashes; and a request of life to make me a vessel for whatever kinds of change and transformation need to happen through me.

    • A Celebration of the Life of Kitty Harris — June 18, 2016
    Performed in 2016
    View film (7:40)
    Download text (PDF)
    • Make Me a Vessel
      On Bob Dylan and the cost of becoming a channel
      Published Mar 28, 2022

    An arching line is compressed, now looking less like a doorway or portal and more like a person or vessel, with a semi-circular head.

    • Camera Kit 1
      In 21 rituals
    • Fire
      In 9 rituals
    • Glass Sheets
      In 22 rituals
    • Glass Stand
      In 22 rituals
    • Glass Urn
      In 2 rituals
    • Steel Blow Pipe
      In 2 rituals
    • Steel Jacks
      In 2 rituals
    • Steel Pontil
      In 2 rituals
    • Steel Shears
      In 2 rituals
    • Steel Tweezers
      In 2 rituals
    • White Clothes
      In 14 rituals
    • White Paint Pen
      In 22 rituals
    • Wood Table
      In 3 rituals
    • Kate Webb Harris
      In 6 rituals
    • Jonathan Jennings Harris
      In 23 rituals
    • Ethan Bond-Watts
      In 4 rituals
    • High Acres Farm
      In 24 rituals
    • The Main House
      In 6 rituals
    • Make Me a Vessel
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      Download all stills from “Make Me a Vessel” (10 MB)

    • Created by
      Jonathan Jennings Harris
    • Edited with
      Scott Thrift
    • Original music by
      Julio Monterrey
    • Filmed at
      High Acres Farm
      • Featuring
        • Ethan Bond Watts
        • Kraig Richard
        • Amanda Herzberger
      • Additional photography
        • Ethan Bond Watts
      • Glass work filmed at
        • AO Glass, Burlington, VT
    Next
    • Essay 11
      Apprenticeship
      A ritual to source and prepare the ingredients to make local glass from scratch
    In Fragments is an exploration of Life Art.
    • Intro
    • FAQ
    • Genealogy
    • Images
    • Music
    • Credits
    • Contact
    In Fragments is an exploration of Life Art
    Created by Jonathan Jennings Harris