I'm the only person in a family of artists of all kinds with any skill in photoshop, so when my grandfather got the brilliant idea to have a granite memorial erected in the family cemetery with space for several 9x4 inch metal plaques I was the one they came to for the art work.
Now anything done by commitee is generally painful...add in family politics...a huge helping of emotion...and you get a general idea of what I've been handed. Before the plaque idea came about both my mother's older sister and my grandfather's wife (not my grandmother) had passed and been cremated...they're both sitting on my grandfather's top closet shelf in his bedroom. He thinks that's pretty funny since they hated each other in life. But I digress...
When my grandmother passed I was formally handed the family plaque project. 9 revisions of Grandma's plaque later I was asked to also do my Aunt's, 14 revision of Grandma's plaque and 12 revisions of my Aunt's plaque later I finally got to contact the place we were getting these done only to find they'd gone under. So the Family Plaque Project got shelved along with the growing collection of human remains in my grandfather's closet.
-paused for 2 hours...on the phone with mom-
Last fall my mother's cousin passed, and the Family Plaque Project became central to a falling out that spanned across 3 generations. Eventually factions formed: one side wanted all of the plaques in the family cemetery uniform containing only the person's name, date of birth, and date of death; the other side wanted each person's plaque to be a reflection of the person who was no longer with us and thought each side should be unique. Months went by, phones were brashly unanswered, angry emails sent...until finally some bright spark opted to use me as part of the argument: Look how much work has already been put into these plaques!
I tried to hide, to find cover from the falling debris under my desk...but to no avail. They found me, hauled me out of hiding by an ear and both sides sternly looked at me with some sort of violent expectation. I kept my mouth wisely shut and the warring parties went their separate ways and I remained the proverbial elephant in the room for nearly a year.
-paused for several hours...took a friend to the doctor-
It was my great-aunt, the mother of my mother's no-longer-with-us cousin and leader of the identical plaque faction, who broke the silence. Well steeped in rum runners she decided that a sailboat would symbolize much of her departed son, and so the two factions reunited with hugs and long warm conversations...as though nothing had passed between them before. I stood on the sidelines, waiting.
My great-aunt is an amazing artist in her own right and the kind of white-haired woman you're shocked to find behind the wheel of the tastefully colored Ferrari that blew past you on the high way. She is a force of nature, and a woman that had a hand in raising me for time. I love her deeply. Knowing she would be involved in the FPP I realized that I should get my preveous designs together since, clearly, she'd be taking over. Interestingly, she was pleased to leave the project in my, apparently, "capable" hands.
She did do the leg work to find a new place to have the plaques made. Last week my mother suggested that it might be nice for me to get those finished before my grandfather needs one of his own. Hint taken! So I emailed the place my great-aunt found to be sure we were all on the same page yesterday. Today I got confirmation we are on the same page and they are pleased to work with us.
Hooray! Movement at last! I passed along the good news to my mother...only to find out they want to review the previously done ones again, some more. So I dug them out of my increasingly bloated MyPictures folder and sent them to her then spent the next several hours making 4 mock ups for my great-aunt to look at. Apparently, the best of the lot was the one that was only his name, date of birth, date of death, and a 2"x2" fucking clipart sail boat that took me 5 minutes to make.
Why am I doing this again?
