Finding our "Doors to Heaven"

A few years ago, I traveled to Paris and while I was there, I spent an afternoon in the Père Lachaise cemetery. It is a beautiful place that al- though filled with tombs, is strangely filled with life, and a celebration of once- lived lives hangs closely around you. As if that were not enough to keep you enter- tained on a gorgeous Parisian afternoon, there’s the fact that so many famous writ- ers, singers.... well artists as a collective group, are buried there. One can not pos- sibly finish the task of taking it all in with one afternoon’s visit alone. Perhaps that in and of itself is what is most intriguing.

There are over 70,000 plots at Père Lachaise, and they range from elaborate and almost creepy - check out the husband and wife made into concrete while laying in bed together forever above ground as they are literally laid to rest together be- neath the tomb - to simplistic and celebra- tory of a life well-lived. People you would recognize are buried there: Fredric Cho- pin, Eugene Delacroix, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde and of course, Jim Morrison. In walking through the veritable haze of graves, the space is also the largest park in Paris, which seems like an odd thing to us, but to the French....ahhh walking amongst the dead in such a richly historical place is an everyday event and seems quite normal.

I wandered upon the famous park with a camera, thank God, in my hands. I had planned to see it but had no idea what to expect. When I reached the first cor- ner, I realized that the space itself could not have been imagined. So splendid was each grave that it took me by surprise. I found myself much like a child in a candy shop. I walked from one side of the path to the other, and after reading and study- ing each grave, I would look up and wan- der through a smaller path amongst trees that were as old if not more so than the graves themselves, which date back over 200 years. I have always loved old things over the newer ones. I think perhaps be- cause of their smells and of how my imagi- nation would run wild as a child as to who might have held that handkerchief or ran their fingers across that pocket watch making the engravings soft and smooth. Here, amongst all the life of the trees and wildflowers, there lingered that same familiar smell of the old.

Many of the tombs are shaped like a phone booth, and as I captured the space with my artistic eyes on, I began to take note that every one of these had doors, either well-kept or barely hanging, de- spite the numbers of graves, each door was different. I again jumped from grave to grave, like a child, mesmerized by the delicate details in the doors and the vast variety of designs. Artistically speaking, I knew that there was probably only a few if even a handful of artisans that would have been talented enough to make these very special doors. I spent the entire after- noon at that point focusing on and captur- ing many of the doors that I was drawn to. With the sun setting over the beauti- ful park and whistles blown by the Pari- sian Authorities, we were escorted on our way. I knew even as we walked away that would not be the last time that I would step foot in Père Lachaise.

After returning home stateside, I sat down and went through each of the doors and began working on colors. I was amazed that in each door, there was a hot spot mostly in the center to the top of each space. I began researching the ac- tual cemetery and found that unlike here, the graves at Père Lachaise are actually a mass grave for each family. The best use of space for the small city of Paris - I’m smiling - and each family is placed togeth- er in a continuous grave. This means that each grave has many persons buried there and the finding of some, let’s say “energy,” in those spaces is by no means unusual, at least not by my way of interpreting the universe. I suddenly realized the lure to gently walk in and around those magnificent graves had a reason to be intriguing!

After that, I put away the images that I had captured at Père Lachaise that afternoon until recently. I had been back to studying them again and found myself having a conversation with an old friend about living and dying. “We all have doors,” I said. “I have walked through the doors God has provided me with, to mother, to photograph, to paint, to write. I may not go to church every single Sunday and I might not be ________ (fill in the blank with all the other religions except for yours), but we all have our doors to heaven.” “Yes we all do,” she replied. It was in that moment that I knew what I was to do with the images created in Père Lachaise that fine and powerful Parisian afternoon. I would name the doors where the living visit to light a candle, remember a soul, speak to their maker near the remains of family members that have already passed through: “Doors to Heaven”.

Like in Père Lachaise, each door is crafted with delicate details and each and every one are different. We, too, in the here and now are given similar doors, though most of us can’t see them. It is my hope that in releasing the first collection of “Doors to Heaven” those that who gaze at them will be drawn to at least one or may- be two. More importantly, I hope that in studying them, all of my viewers will come to realize what I have. Those doors repre- sent our lives. Our doors, and each of us, has one that leads all the way to heaven. We are just asked to seek it and to find it!

Take Care of You!  Alisa