November 20 2011
Gravestone Artwear has donated 10 percent of its Fall T-shirt sales to CARE International
The famine and refugee crisis in Africa continues. All of you who purchased Gravestone Artwear t-shirts this fall helped us donate 10 percent of each sale during the months of September and October to CARE International to help support its humanitarian efforts to fight poverty. A Gravestone Artwear check in the amount of $300 has been sent to CARE to help bring relief to the more than 13 million people in the Horn of Africa who are in urgent need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance, including woman, children and the elderly in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia. Thank you all for helping to support CARE in its efforts to improve the lives of the world’s poor.
For more information about how you can help,
Please visit CARE’s website: http://www.CARE.org/
November 20 2011
THE DIGNITY MEMORIAL VIETNAM WALL VISITS NEW YORK CITY
The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum at Pier 86 in New York City will
host the Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall from November 7 - 20, 2011.
This is the first time ever the traveling wall will be in
Manhattan. The wall is a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., standing 240 feet long and eight feet high. It is inscribed with the names of more than 58,000
Americans who died or are missing in Vietnam. We are honored during
this Veteran’s Day period to have our rubbing kits available at the Intrepid Museum shop so loved ones can create a lasting black wax impression of a person’s name from its inscription on the wall.
The wall serves as a reminder of the human losses and speaks of the heroism, courage and bravery of the soldiers who fought in the Vietnam
War. It brings people together and fosters healing to verterans and
their families and instills an awareness for all - young or old - who gaze upon it.
To learn more about the museum exhibit, please visit
http://www.intrepidmuseum.com/
http://www.dignitymemorial.com/
November 10 2011
For Those that Give
~As Veterans Day Draws Near ~
I spent sometime today thinking back…About the day I spent at the “Traveling Wall” down when we were visiting Florida last year, I found myself being drawn into just how Very Thankful, I am for the GIFT that Our Men & Women..of the Armed Services have given us!...So We can Live and go about our daily lives, as ‘The fathers of Our Country’ had fought so hard for…so long ago
Have a Special Veterans Day ! Please Say a Prayer, for those that are fighting for FREEDOM !
~Cassandra Davidson & Paulette Chernack~
September 30 2011
~Visit our booth at MARKETFEST~
~Visit our booth at MARKETFEST~ Oct. 14 and 15 An old fashion, two-day autumn fair on the grounds of the First Parish Church in YORK VILLAGE, Maine.We will be selling gargoyles, books featuring ghost stories and New England superstitious lore, tarot, Halloween fun stuff and gravestone t-shirts for adults and kids.
September 02 2011
Gravestone Kidswear
Gravestone Kidswear –
Or as we like to call it: Action Wear for Kids
Gravestone Kidswear is here. Finally, babies and toddlers have some fun stuff to wear – whether they are naughty or nice, we have the designs for little angels or mischief-makers. And we know because our little 3rd generation toddler Annika loves wearing our comfy lap shoulder onesies and now that she’s a toddler, our zip-front fleece hoodie.
Our designs include Poe’s Raven Nevermore, skull and crossbones as a reference to pirates, and a heart winged soul effigy.
July 16 2011
Kim Bernard her “Lost Wax Process”
Our AQABA PAPER is not just for gravestone rubbing –
Did you know that our high quality, acid free malleable rubbing paper has other uses besides gravestone rubbing? For instance, Kim Bernard, nationally known artist from North Berwick, Maine, uses our paper exclusively for her “lost wax process” workshops.
She creates beautiful paintings on our large sheets of “Aqaba paper” by using thick layers of translucent opaque wax and applying dye or ink. The results capture beautiful fluid, spontaneous abstract motions created by the artist. In her own words: “It’s the best paper I know of that withstands a dye bath”
The pictures below are from recent “encaustic and wax resist” workshops. Future workshops are scheduled for August and September, 2011. Plan ahead for Kim Bernard Maine Coast Encaustic Retreat Workshop, August 26 – September 1, 2012, at the Colony Hotel resort in Kennebunkport, Maine.For more information, please check out her web site at kbernard.com or contact her at.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
~GALLERY~by Artist Kim Bernard
Lost wax design a 3 panel work
Lost Wax Workshop Image 1
Lost wax Design Image 1
Lost Wax Workshop Image 2
Lost Wax Design Image 2
June 27 2011
Annual Association for Gravestone Studies Conference
The 34th annual conference of the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) was held at Colby College, Waterville, Maine, June 14 – 19th. There were lectures, workshops, exhibits, tours of Maine cemeteries and even sales tables – something for everyone interested in gravestone studies.
Lecture topics presented included Lynne Bagget’s “Incised Letterform”. As demonstrated by Lynne, through careful examination of carved lettering, a stonemason can be identified and his heritage revealed. She also takes this process one step further and creates the most interesting art forms from lettering found on graves and other resources. Even her cast forms taken from contemporary sign lettering have their roots in the ancient carvings.
Always, these lectures and workshops display our cultural heritage and our connections to ancient, medieval, colonial and Victorian influences when it comes to gravestone art and the men and women who carved the stones.
Other papers were presented on topics ranging from images of turn-of-the century Maine; rare Jewish cemetery monuments; portrait gravestones, finger pointing hand carved gravestones of the 19th Century; sandstone markers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, cemeteries; grave structures in Louisiana and other parts of the South; Yellow Fever Epidemics; Old Dutch Cemeteries, and even a lecture on the allegorical death scene in which an angel guides a soul on the last voyage across water to a distant land. All of these lectures required a great deal of research by each presenter and inspire further study into each topic.
The most noteworthy hands-on two-day workshop during this conference is the Conservation workshop. It’s hard work and involves the participants in learning the proper techniques for cleaning, repairing, resetting stones and mortaring them into a base. And that’s the “Beginner” Workshop. That workshop is followed-up by a full day advanced workshop which includes learning how to assess and document gravestones and monuments, use a consumer grade handheld GPS, advanced cleaning techniques, core drilling and removing rusted, damaged pins, adhesive repair of stone fragments and the use of various mortars for infills and replacement of lost materials. WOW! These workshops teach Association for Gravestone Studies participants conservation and restoration skills and they in turn use these skills to work in their favorite burying grounds and cemeteries to restore damaged markers, gravestones and of course monuments.
Other workshops included letter form casting; photography; making foil impressions of gravestones; paranormal experiences; understanding the history and evolution of cemetery markers; gravestone rubbing; and even “humor in the graveyard.”
The next AGS conference will be in June of 2012 at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey. Please contact the Association for Gravestone Studies in Greenfield, Massachusetts, for more details. Its web site is: http://gravestonestudies.org/
(Please scroll down to see the Gallery from our travels while we attended the conference)
Here are photos of AGS conferees wearing Gravestone Artwear t-shirts.
Jane Macomber, President of the Maine Old Cemetery Association
The Phil Wooldridge Family from Great Meadows, New Jersey—
Jack, Lorna and Phil
Other Conferees:
~GALLERY of Our AGS 2011 Travels~
The above shows details from a Celtic Cross found in the Mount Pleasant Catholic Cemetery in Bangor, Maine
Several marble gravestones and the ~Death House~ in the background at Mount Pleasant Catholic Cemetery in Bangor, Maine. **Note: In most New England cemeteries, the Receiving House or Death House as it is called in Bangor, Maine, is the place where the deceased were kept until spring when the ground thawed enough to enable proper burying of the deceased.
The Annie and Captain J. French memorial at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor, Maine. This is America’s second garden cemetery, designed by Charles G Bryant in 1834. The first garden cemetery is Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This above photo is the stylish monument which Annie French patented and included the beautiful wreath.
A close up of the beautiful wreath of glass beads.
This beautiful building with its ornate ironwork was a departure and arrival station house for visitors to and from the cemetery by streetcar in the late 19th and early 20th century. **Note: The Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor, Maine, one of America’s most beautiful rural garden cemeteries encompasses over 250 acres. The cemetery includes the grave sites of Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President. Other notables are two U.S. Senators, eleven U.S. Congressmen, two U.S. Ambassadors, five Maine Governors, eight Civil War Generals and numerous others.
These stones steps at Mt Hope Cemetery were photographed during the funeral scene in Stephen King’s movie, Pet Semetary. For those of us who have seen the movie, Stephen King even made a cameo appearance as the minister who officiated at the funeral of Missy Dandridge.
And what trip to Bangor, Maine, would not be complete without a drive-by past Stephen King’s house. Shhhh, we’ll never tell you exactly where it is so you can appreciate this lovely facade and especially the unique gate from the photo we snapped. After all, this is what we would expect Stephen’s King’s house to look like. Right?
May 15 2011
The Start & The Change
Where we started so very many years ago,
Unfortunately, We no longer are using the in shop in the York Town Center, We moved our studio to York Harbor, Maine. Although We no longer are using a public “walk In” store front we are hoping that everyone that bought from us in the past will just pop on the Internet, we will fill their orders as if they were right in front of us !
Those of you that have gone through the change with us, thank you so much for the orders and positive thoughts as we moved many years into a new location and have been getting the Internet side of things set up for this site, As well as also Gravestone Rubbing Supplies.com.
** Please feel free to send in pictures and stories, So we can out yours up here,So we too can share in others travels and good times Enjoying the Rubbing Side of things. ~Thanks again Paulette Chernack & Cassandra Davidson~
May 15 2011
A Bit of Stone History
The Early New England Burying grounds were the FIRST public Art Galleries of the New World, Even today, many of these verdant, tranquil sites contain a remarkable progression of the artistic, cultural, and religious history of the region.Often old Gravestone’s explain how an ENTIRE family lived and died.Neglect, natural, aging, vandalism. Unfortunately, have resulted in the destruction of some of the finest examples of early stone carving, and numerous old cemeteries are closed to the public to protect the remaining stones.