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Lakewood’s inaugural Artist in Residence program, highlights the importance of art in supporting the grieving and healing process. Since Lakewood’s beginnings as a garden cemetery, art has always been an integral part of our space. Predating the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Lakewood served as an outdoor museum where people came not just to pay respects but also to admire stunning memorials and sculptures. Today, Lakewood reimagines the role of a cemetery in modern life, and as part of that vision, launches our Artist in Residence program.
We are thrilled to welcome our first cohort of talented, local artists to create, learn and share throughout the next year. To kick off the program, we invite you to a free public talk and reception to learn more about our artists and their projects. This event will include a talk and Q&A in the chapel, followed by a reception in the Welcome Center.
Chapel seating is limited so RSVPs are requested.
Meet the Artists
We are excited to announce the selected winners of our 25-26 Artist in Residence Program! Learn more about the artists.
Diana Eicher
Recycling and Repurposing the flowers of Lakewood
Diana has a BA in painting from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an MFA in printmaking from the University of Hawaii. Diana balances her life as an artist for over thirty-five years with her career as Director of the Printmaking and Papermaking Studios at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Diana works in printmaking, handmade paper, papercutting, and installation work.
I am a printmaker and papermaker and my residency project is to use and repurpose flowers that are being discarded after a funeral. I will use these flowers to make handmade paper that people can take with them. I plan to make prints on the handmade paper with floral imagery that I will exhibit at the end of the residency. I will also teach two workshops in printmaking on the handmade paper that will be free and open to the public.
Sarah Greer
Giving Voice to Grief
Based in the Twin Cities on Dakota homelands, vocalist Sarah M. Greer (www.sarahmgreer.com) has invented music on local and international stages. An avid singer and song carrier, she developed Giving Voice to Grief to help communities in the Twin Cities come together to hold and transmute our grief over local and global events. Sarah has led her song circle, Songtaneous, since 2006 and teaches singing at Minneapolis College as well as to private students. They are passionate, almost evangelical, about every person’s right to sing and about the power of singing to change the world.
In Giving Voice to Grief, Sarah will host four seasonal singing workshops in Lakewood’s historic chapel, inviting the audience to sing through emotions of grief and loss. Each of the four events will have a different theme.
Andrew Grum Carr
An Opening
Andrew Grum Carr is a Twin Cities painter, writer and teacher. Whether in pictures or in words, his work seeks out quiet, restful corners and unhurried rhythms: from an arrangement of leaves at the conservatory, to the unexpected dignity in a freeway overpass.
I will write an extended narrative essay, meditating on an experience as a teacher, visiting the Lakewood chapel with students after a classmate’s death. I’ll also paint nine large watercolors of the cemetery through the changing seasons, to accompany the essay.
RJ Kern
Ethereal Echoes: A Journey of Light
R. J. Kern (b. 1978) is an American artist whose work investigates ideas of home, ancestry and a sense of place. Accolades include Critical Mass Top 50 (2018, 2021, 2024), artist grants from Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and seven grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Monographs include The Sheep and the Goats (Kehrer Verlag, 2017) and The Unchosen Ones (MW Editions, 2021). Public collections include Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Walker Art Center.
This body of work merges Buddhist teachings on impermanence and rebirth with the alchemy of Chromoskedasic photography—a technique that transforms expired silver gelatin prints into mirror-like images echoing 19th-century daguerreotypes. Created steps from Minneapolis’ Lakewood Cemetery, where generations of my family rest, these meditative pieces invite viewers to contemplate life’s cycles (birth, community, mortality) through organic patterns shaped by light, chemistry, and memory.
Read more about each artist, including their inspiration and connection to Lakewood.
The Lakewood Heritage Foundation
The Lakewood Heritage Foundation is a proud sponsor of the Lakewood Artist in Residence program. The Lakewood Heritage Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization created to sustain Lakewood as a local treasure by supporting educational programming and the preservation and restoration of Lakewood’s landscape, art, architecture and public spaces—for the benefit of all.
Event Moderator: Emily Bright
Emily Bright is a weekend host at MPR News. She produces two weekly arts and books features, Art Hounds and Ask a Bookseller, and also fills in as a host for other shows across MPR News. She is the author of the poetry collection, “Fierce Delight: Poems of Early Motherhood.”
Event Locations
Talk and Q&A | 6 – 7 PM
Location: Historic Memorial Chapel
Join us in the historic Lakewood Memorial Chapel to hear more about the artists and their proposed projects. This talk will include an open Q&A. Seating in the chapel is in pews and is first-come, first-serve.
Reception | 7-8:30 PM
Location: Lakewood Welcome Center
Following the talk, take a brief walk or drive over to our new Welcome Center for an opportunity to chat one-on-one with the artists. This reception includes light bites and a cash bar.
Doors open at 5:30 PM for chapel seating
Parking and Transportation
Driving Directions
Parking is available on any of the roads inside Lakewood’s gates unless otherwise noted with a no parking sign. Handicap parking will be available near the Chapel as well as the Welcome Center. Lakewood does not have an onsite parking lot – it is street parking only. This means you may have to park a short distance away and walk. We strongly encourage carpooling and public transportation.
Bus Directions
Metro Transit lines 6 and 23 stop directly outside of Lakewood’s gates, a short walk to the Memorial Chapel and the Welcome Center.
Bike Directions
Please lock bikes at the rack near the main entrance gates and walk to the Welcome Center. Do not lock bikes to trees or signs, leave bicycles unlocked on the grounds., or leave shared bikes or scooters overnight.
FAQs
Photography notice: To help us promote Lakewood and our events and offerings, guests may be photographed. By attending, you consent to appear in this documentation and its future use by Lakewood. We do our best to select photos without recognizable faces. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let staff know upon arrival.
