Willie Birch: For Old Bones and Southern Memories

Willie Birch (b.1942, New Orleans, LA) designed a fifteen foot x fifteen foot packed-earth burial ground. Its design was inspired by the artist’s recent stay in Puerto Rico as well as his interest in South American and African cultures. Inside the “burial grounds” stand ten hand-hewn pine and fir grave markers, a twelve-foot carved palm tree and a plank façade suggestive of a church. Incised and painted images on the grave markers illustrate symbols of urban problems, such as a heroin needle, as well as symbols that evoke Caribbean island cultures, such as a man with a trumpet.