ASK A MORTICIAN- Painting with Human Remains!

Painting with cremated human remains and..... well, intact human remains (gasp! history!)

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***CREDITS***

Mortician: Caitlin Doughty
Research & Writing: Louise Hung
Flying Kitten Titles: Oliver Franklin Anderson

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Cremation Portraits:

[nataliareyes]

When I was five my mom told me she wanted to be cremated. She is an artist, so I asked if I could paint or sculpt a portrait of her with them (I was a weird morbid child). She loved the idea, and it's still the plan when she does die. Thanks for everything you do to inform us and show us deathlings that we aren't really that strange.

[debayeuxchats]

The man burying his paint is so sweet. Such a sudden turn around to try to fix what was done.

[GTdba]

Ashes put in bullets? Holy smoke, I just had the vision of the most badass Action movie scene ever!
" You killed my father, now I have a special bullet just for you! Revenge will be his!"
...said with Liam Neeson's Voice.

[BlueIdiotPie]

that dude who buried his paint when he found out what was in it is a true champ

[piscesrain]

The "holy smokes" company I thought that was gonna go a whole different route

[stellastellub]

Imagine if someone murdered your loved one so you shot them with their ashes.

[MMandGlitter]

I had a friend who's uncle was a Drag Queen, so when he died, they had his ashes mixed with the paint of a painting of him as his Drag character. It was pretty cool, not gonna lie.

[bryntendo]

I used a lot of the flowers from the bouquets sent to my house after my grandfather died to make a huge painting in his honour. I pressed and dried the flowers and such, then drew up an ethereal scenario with music staffs and doves flying away over the notes to his favourite opera song (he was an opera singer) with the pressed flowers taking feature and forever preserved in mod podge on the canvas, haha. I look at that canvas now and think it's so juvenile and awful, but I was 16 and not as skilled as I am now, but my mum (his daughter) still hangs my grief painting including pressed flowers in a spare room at my parent's house. I catch her looking at it sometimes, and despite the fact that I would never make something the same way these days, I'm glad it helps her have some semblance of peace and connection that her own kid made this intricate artwork in memorial of her deceased father. Obviously I didn't use any of his actual remains, but I think using the flowers and his favourite music to capture his 'essence' has made it much more sentimental to her than it is for me

[MMDAMV]

Burying the tube of paint is one of the most oddly endearing things I've ever heard

[alyssaortega]

I wonder who the first guy was that was like " you know what? lets take these corpses and turn them into paint" and the other guy that was like "good idea" ?

[HaLfCrAzEdCaNuCk]

I have 4 tattoos with my sons ashes added...lost him to cancer when he was 19.Had a hell of a time finding someone who would do them for me.His best friend has 2 tatts done with his ashes as well and his 1 and only GF got a full back piece done...angel wings surrounding his name.I have plans for at least 15 more to finish the living memorial of his 19 years of life.

[ThePandafart]

my inner Egyptologist will never not be enraged at mummy brown. like how much history is gone because of "the pursuit of art"

[Harloween]

I told my kiddo I would prefer to be created and have her take my ashes on a cruise and scatter them. (FYI Carnival Cruise Lines will coordinate this for you for free and give you a certificate that gives the coordinates of the scattering)
But I told her to do whatever SHE needed to do to grieve and process, she will be the one doing the mourning, and she should be able to do what she needs to do emotionally without feeling like my expectations aren't being met. I dont have a large family and most of them are jerks anyway, so i would prefer they skip fake sorrow anyway.

[heatherwright]

A small amount of my mom's ashes were used in the making of a glass orb I have. The ashes came out as white swirls that are beautiful among the blue hues and golden glitter.

[carrielopez]

You have to be one of my favorite YouTube peeps. I have had a near phobic fear of death and the dead...since 1st grade when my best friend died in a house fire. I lost my dad unexpectedly in October and have been struggling immensely but your videos help me to smile through it.

[HullabaLulu_Art]

I worked as a tattoo artist before disability meant I had to give it up. I've seen ashes mixed into tattoo ink, and I had mixed feelings about it. First of all, any unused ink is then dumped after the tattoo, so grandpa's ashes are still in there. Second, I wasn't sure about whether or not the remains would be mixed in with our ultrasonic cleaning fluid, so I had to make sure I disposed of that and replaced it after cleaning the grips, again making me think, "Grandpa's heading down the drain there..." And third, we got a lot of negative feedback from regular customers, insisting it was "unhygienic" or "ghoulish". It was definitely a mixed bag of reactions, not all of them logical. But since then, I've lost two very dear family members, and I can understand why you would want ashes worked into a tattoo.

[mattknife]

I would paint with ashes, sounds like a great way to honor the dead. It would also be a great pigment with the right mediums.

[Lost-in-Wonderland]

Both my best friend and I were pregnant at the same time. When this video was released only I was still carrying.

Her beautiful son tragically passed in utero and she had to deliver him a few weeks before this was posted. Our hearts were broken as our sons would have been very close in age. Her angel Lewis was cremated after an extremely jarring and traumatic delivery and post delivery experience. His ashes are now a memorialised tattoo that my dear friend cherishes very deeply and when I heard of her having it I admit I cried at the beauty of it. So tragically torn apart finally mum and baby were back together again. She also had him eternalised in jewellary. Two years later we were once again pregnant with daughters who thankfully both arrived to this world healthy. They are only 12 weeks apart. It was as if the universe was trying to correct things once more as neither of us had any intention of having more children.

Having ashes turned into 'art' can be absolutely consoling especially in the most tragic of passings.

[fowlerpower]

One of my favourite memorial tributes to cremated remains is immortalizing them in custom wind chimes. I fell in love with the blown glass paperweights and sculptures, however, there is something truly magical and symbolic of hearing the serene melody of chimes and feeling connected to the energy of your lost loved one.

[TehSkullKrusher]

When you mentioned adding ashes to bullets, my first thought was avenging someone's death with a bullet containing their ashes. Not saying *I* would do that, but it'd be cool in a work of fiction. Just saying