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Things that go bump in the night
Forest Hills Cemetery goes National; signs of subterranean life in Lowell
BY RANDI HOPKINS
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This just in: our beautiful, leafy, and just a little bit creepy Forest Hills Cemetery has been honored with a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that will be celebrated in high style on Sunday June 26 with events to include treasure hunts and trolley rides to famous gravesites (from abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to restaurateur Ruby Foo to poet Anne Sexton), famous grave markers (including several by sculptor Daniel Chester French), and the fine contemporary art that now graces the grounds under the stewardship of Cecily Miller, director of the Forest Hills Educational Trust. In Wraith Wrap, Leslie Wilcox swaths a big old oak tree in a massive stainless robe. In Resting Benches, Danielle Krcmar and Lisa Osborn play on the idea of death as glorified sleep. And Mitch Ryerson integrates Forest Hills denizen e.e. cummings’s poetry into the trunk of a sugar maple. Wilcox, Krcmar, and Ryerson will be among the many artists on hand June 26 to talk about their work. If you drop by on June 25, moreover, you’ll hear the Riverview Chamber Players salute Frédéric Chopin, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison, and other well-known residents of Père Lachaise Cemetery, the celebrity-filled burial ground in Paris. Established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804, Père Lachaise inspired the original design of Forest Hills Cemetery. Photographer and historian Susan Wilson will present a special slide show of Père Lachaise’s art and architecture; that will be followed by a guided after-dark flashlight tour to Forest Hills Cemetery’s Lake Hibiscus, with stops for stargazing and monument touring. Caves have to be right up there with graves on our list of scary environments — they’re dark and claustrophobic and have that dank smell. But caves have served as shelter and refuge through the ages, and we’ve been decorating them since at least the early days of humans at Lascaux. The Revolving Museum in Lowell pays tribute to cave art and communication in its "Signs of Life," which opens at its LAB Space this Saturday. Revolving Museum workshop leader Alison Nesbitt worked together with the Lowell Public School’s Extended Time Program, and she engaged 76 students from three local schools for more than six months in a course where they ground their own pigments, sculpted an elaborate cave environment, and created visual art and writings in response to their experience. Their creative cave — stalactites, cave paintings, and all — combines ancient and modern aspects of the timeless human desire for self-expression. "Père Lachaise Slides with Susan Wilson and the Riverview Chamber Players" is at Forsyth Chapel, Forest Hills Cemetery, 95 Forest Hills Avenue in Jamaica Plain, on June 25 at 8 p.m., followed by an "Illuminations Tour" at 9 p.m. Admission to the concert is $10, or $8 for members; the tour is $8, or free with concert ticket. Call (617) 524-3354 for concert reservations. The cemetery offers treasure hunts and trolley rides on June 26 from 2 to 5 p.m. Admission is free; trolley rides are $8 for adults, $4 for children. The Contemporary Sculpture Path at Forest Hills opens June 26 and remains on view all summer; admission is free. "Signs of Life" is at the Revolving Museum LAB Space, 181 Market Street in Lowell, June 18 through August 21, with an opening reception June 18 from 2 to 6 p.m. Suggested donation is $5; call (978) 937-ARTS.
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