Rose Cross - Black and White Print by KC Wilkerson at www.kcwgallery.com

I have a new photography exhibit that just opened Saturday, February 7th at Night Gallery in Santa Ana, California. This is my second show with them and, despite the rain, a good number of people turned out! This show features images from a collection I have named Cruciform. Each image contains some form of a cross. I get a lot of questions about my prints at these shows, so I thought it’d be interesting to discuss a few of them in greater detail, starting with one that everyone commented on last night - “Rose Cross”.

This image was created at Cimetiere de Montparnasse in December 2006 on a trip to Paris. We had been in the city several days and had already visited two other cemeteries (St. Vincente and Montmartre).  We spent about five hours in this particular cemetery, starting at about 10am (after a quick stop for Cafe du Creme and a croissant). Even though the sun was out it was freezing cold; the flower urns all contained ice that had frozen overnight.

Hundreds of notable people are buried in Montparnasse; Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Charles Beaudelaire and the photographers Brassai and Man Ray, to name a few. They share the grounds with authors, painters, poets, actors, publishers, and captains of industry. Baudelaire’s grave is particularly beautiful. I took quite a few pictures of it, thinking he would find it ironic given his well-documented distaste for photography as an “art form”.

Now I realize five hours may seem like a long time to spend in a cemetery but Montparnasse is quite large, created from three farms in 1824. It is roughly pentagon shaped and fairly flat (unlike the beautiful to see but tiring to walk Cimetiere de Montmartre). We could have easily gone back a second day (and will, soon!).

Close to the end of our time there, I happened upon a large mausoleum. Set into the stone facade was a large iron, thick iron door. The door had holes drilled into it in the shape of a cross and someone had inserted the stems of these roses into the holes. I found the tableaux to be touching and inspiring. I immediately started to wonder if the door was originally designed to have holes in it. Were they added afterward? Were they intended to hold flowers? Seeing that the roses were made of some sort of paper, I wondered if someone came to check on them and replace them frequently.

Invariably this is what happens every time I’m in a cemetery; I leave with far more questions than answers…

Once we got home and I started going through my negatives, this one really stood out to me. I have always thought it had the potential to be an iconic image and am very pleased to have it included in the show.

To see more of my work, please visit www.kcwgallery.com, www.kcwgallery.etsy.com, and www.cafepress.com/kcwgallery.