Jane Hopkins
Over the past decade Jane Hopkins has photographed over 200 cemeteries in the eastern US and Canada. She finds cemeteries a treasure trove of art created from stone by the carver's tools. These are sacred places representing the essence of someone's life on earth and the loving memories of those left behind. Looking for a way.... more
Over the past decade Jane Hopkins has photographed over 200 cemeteries in the eastern US and Canada. She finds cemeteries a treasure trove of art created from stone by the carver's tools. These are sacred places representing the essence of someone's life on earth and the loving memories of those left behind. Looking for a way to verbalize feelings evoked by these headstones and statues, Jane came across an anthology of poetry from the 1890s, handed down from the family farm. She researched the period's poetry, prose, hymns and epitaphs. She chose quotations that eloquently express the grief of those left behind and the wonder of death, adding personal reflections from her own and her family's experience. Jane's educational background includes degrees in Psychology and Social Work, augmented by several years of coursework in digital photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her fine art photographs have been exhibited and sold since 2002 at venues such as Art at the Gardens (Sonnenberg Gardens, Canandaigua, NY), the Fingerlakes Exhibition and Clothesline Festival (Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY), the Dyer Arts Center at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester's Image City Photography Gallery, and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts. She is a member of the Friends of Mt. Hope (Cemetery), the Association of Gravestone Studies, and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts. Her website-//https:www.cemeteryreflections.com--provides further information about the development of this book and additional images from historic and modern cemeteries. It also provides links to her blog, CV, Facebook and Instagram pages.