GreyFriars Kirkyard
Memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning “remember that you must die.” It is less a morbid commentary of the inevitable and more a thoughtful reflection on mortality. The concept focuses on treating time a a gift rather than wasting it.
A long time in the making.
Always having been a bit morbid with an eye to the dark side, this was iconography that I identified strongly with but always felt that I had nothing to add to the conversation jewelry wise. “Because I like skulls” did not feel like a sufficient reason to tackle a topic that deserves the upmost respect.
Unfortunately, 2025 gave me the reason to change what I was creating and produce such a body of work. My partner of 8 years succumbed to an aggressive cancer six months after diagnosis and left this world in February 2025. Left emotionally, spiritually, and professionally adrift, I sought processes and journeys to heal my wounded soul and put things back together again.
As I began to settle into the new normal, it felt like since everything had changed, I might as well change everything else. I could barely pretend to care about the jewelry I had been creating for years and needed to give myself a new direction and focus. Memento mori, Latin for remember that you must die, felt like an appropriate spiritual life raft to cling to. Choose life, live life, take the piss, you don’t know how long you will be here for.
In tandem with planned changes to my jewelry works, I gave myself a year of permissions to do all the things I had always wanted to do but never allowed the time or resources. A year isn’t that long, however, and resources remained limited. Getting myself out of Berlin and as far from the teeming masses of humanity was top of the list. I had always wanted to spend time in Scotland, and had for years harboured a not secret fantasy of cosplaying farm life somewhere beautiful.
I found myself a month long volunteer placement at Puffin Croft, a beautiful petting farm where all the animals have names and that is literally at the end of the world in John O’Groats, Scotland. I packed up semi appropriate farm gear and my sketchbook and pencils, the plan being to figure out the whats of the collection over my month long sabbatical in an ocean view caravan.
John O’ Groats is an 8 hour train ride north of Edinburgh, necessitating a layover in the city. Having 24 hours to play the role of tourist with no clear plans, I set off for Modern, which had a small Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition up.
The first Mapplethorpe print I came across was a Memento mori themed self portrait taken a few months before his death. Never into the wu-wu, always willing to listen to the universe, it felt like I was being pulled in the right direction. As I wandered the gallery floor, I also came across Memento mori themed work by Andy Warhol and Sarah Lucas. Having the aforementioned unclear plan of designing this new collection, it felt like the world had given me a few crumbs to follow.
This adventure occupied about an hour, and after doing the typical tourist wanderings, I was out of activities by about 3pm. I would love to tell a romantic tale of wandering down an empty alley, an old Scotsman pointing me in a direction, and stumbling upon what is the crux of this story. For better or worse, I cracked open my Lonely Planet, read a small blurb about one of the most famous cemeteries in the world (who knew?), and set off for Greyfriars Kirkyard.
Greyfriars was founded in 1560 by Mary Queen of Scots and had regular burials thru the late 1800’s, with a final closing for new plots in 1978. The cemetery has something of a sordid history. Amongst other issues, it had a body snatching problem in the 19th century, stemming from the high demand for cadavers by medical schools. Greyfriars remains one of the most notoriously haunted graveyards in the world.
The GreyFriars Collection is based on this dude.
The universe (Lonely Planet) had once again sent me down the correct path. The first gravestone was a beaten up skull and crossbones with a Memento mori banner above. As I explored, most of the headstone and grave markers were skulls and skeletons and various death imagery. I had my collection. And I had the actual aged topiaries I have cited for years as my inspiration. Appealing to both my long held aesthetic love of the aged, the worn, and the abandoned, and the direction that I planned to take my work, the statuaries of GreyFriars will most likely inform many future collections.
Worlds could be built from this monument alone.
I originally had the note “write something profound about death” here. However, this story is not about me trying to sum up existence in a few quick bits. I don’t have answers for myself, let alone anyone else. I also thought that interspersing pictures of the animals of Puffin Croft and joking about Lonely Planet felt a bit off key. It’s not. It’s all part of my story and my journey. If anything, these animals should be a reminder to go pet the furry things, watch the sunset, have that second glass of wine.
One life, one chance, gotta do it right.
Stay awesome!
XoXo