PICTURE THIS
View to Eternity
The humble building at Silver City's Masonic Cemetery is now robed in colors and symbols of local Masons' history.
Story and photos by Donna Clayton Lawder
If you haven't driven down Cooper Street in Silver City lately, past the Masonic Cemetery, you might do a double-take the next time you do. The cemetery's small utility building has recently been lovingly embellished with ancient symbols, bringing a lively sense of identity, history and tradition to the graveyard in which it sits.
Patti Crawford and her work
in progress. |
"We tend the grounds here. It's six acres," says Patti Crawford, pausing from her work to look out over the gently rolling hills before her. "Except for the ghosts, it's really quiet. But they're no trouble," she adds with a playful smile.
Harold Johnson, Crawford's brother, runs the company that maintains the cemetery and assisted with the painting project. He pulls out a book of photos and shows some of the Masonic symbols the two have gone through to choose the images for the job.
Johnson moved to the area from Seattle in 2001. Crawford lived in Albuquerque and Lordsburg before settling in Silver City.
"My husband is a Mason," Crawford says of her other, more personal connection to the project. "Restoring this building and putting up the Masonic history in these symbols is a labor of love for me, too."
Crawford started painting the little building late last summer. It serves as an information point for the cemetery, with a large blueprint of the graveyard now displayed on one side and maps to the gravesites available to visitors. All paint for the project was purchased locally, she adds: "I can't imagine doing a community project like this one, especially, and not supporting the local economy."
She points out that her artwork is protected from graffiti by a clear final coat of specialized product used for this purpose.
Having finished the Masonic cemetery project, Crawford has since returned to her other artwork—oil paintings as well as some work in watercolor and pen and ink. Some of her paintings have sold through Manzanita Ridge on Bullard Street in Silver City.
Asked about the themes in her paintings and drawings, she says, "Oh, just whatever is going on in my awareness at that time. My artwork tells my stories."
Much like the Masonic cemetery building now tells the story of local Masons' history.
Donna Clayton Lawder is senior editor of Desert Exposure.
Who Are the Masons? According to The Philalethes Society (www.freemasonry.org), a group dedicated to spreading knowledge about the Masonic world, "Freemasonry is the oldest and largest worldwide fraternity dedicated to the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of a Supreme Being. Although of a religious nature, Freemasonry is not a religion. It urges its members, however, to be faithful and devoted to their own religious beliefs." Arguably tracing its roots back to the construction of the Temple of King Solomon, Freemasonry formally began with the formation of the London Masons Company in 1356. The first Grand Lodge was organized in London in 1717, and the Masons came to America with many of the colonies' founding families. George Washington is only one of many prominent Americans who belonged to the Masons. New Mexico's Grand Lodge dates to 1877. Prominent Masons with ties to New Mexico include Kit Carson, Gov. Lew Wallace and Gen. Douglas MacArthur. According to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, "The fraternity uses the metaphor of operative stonemasons' tools and implements, against the allegorical backdrop of the building of the Temple of King Solomon, to convey what is most generally defined as 'a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.' While it has often been called a 'Secret Society,' it is more correct to say that it is an esoteric society, in that certain aspects are private. From many quarters, Freemasons have stated that Freemasonry has, in the 21st century, become less a secret society and more of a 'society with secrets.'" In earlier years, the Masons often sparked controversy and criticism, most notably from the Catholic Church. Most recently, the bestselling book and movie The Da Vinci Code spun fictions based on the Masons' symbols and historic secrecy. Today's real-life Masons concentrate on charitable good works and fraternal fun, such as the upcoming June 16 Masonic Olympics in Albuquerque, featuring "Texas Hold-Em, horseshoes, bowling, croquet, washers, darts, Jeopardy and ?????." For more information on New Mexico Masonic activities, see the Web site nmmasons.org. The Masonic Cemetery in Silver City is maintained
by Silver City Masonic Lodge No. 8, which meets the second and fourth
Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at 11 Ridge Road. For more information,
call 538-8561. |