Posy-Filled Pockets has a guest curator this month! Our very own coordinator Skye Bergen will be curating Death & the Feminine. She will be co-presenting with special guest, and local Grass Valley tattoo artist, Alycia Harr. Other fantastic speakers of the evening will be Courtney Williams, Jamaica Karr, and the ever-present Tim Lilyquist. 

Buy your tickets online ahead of time! 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/death-and-the-feminine-tickets-26068021153

A Lovely Corpse Recap

It was a dark and stormy night...

No seriously, it really was. We had a great time anyway. There were cookies.

Our Death & Beauty event "A Lovely Corpse" on Sunday, March 20th was indeed, quite lovely. Even though it was incredibly dark and pouring rain, a few new faces braved the storm from Sacramento to join the audience. They drank our Kool-Aid, and we're pretty sure they liked it.

Either PFP Art Director Skye Beren has threatened them quietly, or they're into us.

Tim not only managed to make the subject of a mortician's wardrobe riveting and delivered some serious slides FINALLY, he took enough tasteful backside shots to possibly release his own beefcake calendar come 2017. (GOALS. WE HAVE THEM.)

Resident PFP mortician Tim Lilyquist really DOES put the "fun" in....sorry. We know better.

In anticipation of Tim being slideless, he was, as usual, gifted with some creative ones we made for him. Boy did we look stupid when he busted out the best slides EVER. We think someone helped him. We would like them to help us too.

No. No we don't know better. We're liars that don't know better.

 Posy-Filled Pockets, at your service. These faces are our helpful, informative faces. These are the faces we make when we're ad libbing our intro because Rachel has been busy planning shows two months ahead of time while neglecting the current one, and Tim's business picks up just enough to keep him locked up behind mortuary doors until the day before a show. Don't worry. We totally know what we're doing.

Did you see we had cookies? There were cookies.

Rachel and Tim, your impeccably dressed, hand clutching hosts. 

Special Guest Marci Bennett from San Francisco's Odd Salon spoke on the Glamorization of Expiration. "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse." James Dean did not actually say that.

Marci Bennett explains shows us horrific auto accidents and heroin addicts. For fashion.

 Courtney Williams entertained us with Fatal Fashions. Arsenic-laced formal wear, anyone? For those keeping score at home, at least two PFP participants were wearing items on her list.

Courtney discussing her fatal fashion topic further with audience member and soap maven Normal Vincent of Outlaw Soaps

Despite the horrible weather, our third evening event was the best one yet, and the presentations just keep getting better and better. Tim had slides! The next two months are big shows for us. In April we'll be focusing on the subject of suicide education and local resources, and in May we'll be making our big venue move to the Iron Door, under the historic Holbrooke Hotel, which we're hoping will be our new home for the evening events. (Workshops will remain at The Chapel of the Angels Mortuary.) 

Keep an eye on our Facebook page as well as our Happenings page here on the blog for presentation announcements and upcoming shenanigans! 

Rachel, Marci and Tim enjoy Skye Bergen's trip around the world with corpses all dressed up for the party.

Come to our next event! We have cookies.  

Sometimes there are cookies. You'll never know unless you show up.

Art Amort: Angelique Stacey - Vanity Vehicle Memento Mori Paintings

Angelique X Stacey, Artist & Performer

No one will ever accuse Angelique X Stacey of squandering her many talents. 

A seasoned musician whose vocals have soared over San Francisco crowds for two decades, her eclectic repertoire flirts with several genres. Her powerful, seductive voice is accompanied by the mastery of several instruments, hand and rod and marionette puppeteering and building, modeling, tattooing, and at least a working knowledge of just about anything artistically expressive.

 When skimming her diverse resume of performances and accomplishments, it's almost easy to miss what is easily one of her most compelling artistic endeavors–Commissioned Memento Mori Portraits, using the ashes of the deceased companion. 

Provided with the photo of a person (or pet) that has expired as well as their cremated remains, Angelique sketches out the portrait, then recreates their likeness using acrylic or antique mortuary make-up as a media, ashes included.

Angelique at work

A firm believer in the afterlife and the spirit world, Angelique has always had a strong rapport with death. That connection deepened with the sudden passing of her best friend Heather, who Angelique has canonized on a 16x20 canvas.

Heather Dawn Oswald. Acrylics and Antique Mortuary Makeup on Canvas 16x20

We had questions. We had deathy questions, artsy questions, nosy questions. 

Tell us a little about Heather. Was she your first Memento Mori painting?

Heather was my best friend who died in a car accident Nov. 5th 2001. She is the first portrait painted that I have kept, but not the first to be painted. 

That goes to my Uncle Charles, I painted a portrait of him for his 80th birthday and gifted it to him. He passed away soon after, a beloved Navy veteran and Mason who also work for the SFPD.

I had originally planned to start with my Aunt Pat from Glasgow, Scotland. She was the first person to contact me to let me know they were passing. This was in May of 1983. She took me to her favourite place (the London Zoo) after I rode to see her on water kelpie in a dream. She told me that she loved me and that she was there for me. About a decade later my father gave me her ashes to do a painting with. Since she was my first after death contact.

What do you find a portrait like this offers to the grieving? 

I think it's a way to memorialize them, to not forget their faces or their eye colour and what they meant to me, I imagine it's the same for my clients, it's a touchstone that literally has their loved one in it.. Heather I had to paint for my own healing. I saved the makeup that I used on her for her funeral viewing. She was buried  not cremated so I used the makeup and antique makeup and embalming products in her painting. 

 Is the medium difficult to work with?

I donated the mortuary makeup to a museum in Louisville,  Kentucky.  It was from the turn of the century to the 1930's so it was quite toxic. So whilst using it is wore gloves.

As far as cremains themselves, it's most gritty, dust and bone. It mixes in with most mediums. 

I have been warned there are some brain diseases that can survive cremation so it is good to handle all biological material with care. Gloves,  masks. Humans are ground a bit finer then say dogs so some paintings are more textured then others.

Furry family members get the same loving touch

What would you like done with your remains, and who would you trust to follow through with your wishes? How can you be contacted if someone is interested in commissioning a piece?

I had a will for a long time that willed different tattoos to be preserved and framed for folks but I don't have someone in place to follow out my wishes, I will write that down in my Edward Gorey "what to do when I am dead" book for my survivors.   I am an organ donor so I think I will end up hopefully helping others. 

If there was anything left to make a creative use of it would be an honour. Maybe some spooky memento Mori jewelry would be nice.

Any takers? Where can people contact you if they would like a portrait done?

I can be contacted on Facebook (and all other social media under Angelique X Stacy) or email at angelxstacy@gmail.com

Heather's portrait in the works