For Eon: Grave Rubbings Workshop

The grave rubbings done during this workshop were under the supervision of staff members. Please do not attempt to do grave rubbings without the approval of a cemetery. Certain stones can be damaged by grave rubbings.

On a warm Saturday in June, a small gathering of friends, volunteers, and family were invited to join DC-based artist MJ in a special Pride workshop in Historic Congressional Cemetery’s storied Gay Corner. In a moment of shared remembrance, participants pressed sheets of newsprint against the headstones of LGBTQIA+ residents in this historically dedicated space. By gently rubbing a wax crayon against the carved text relief of the headstones, we gathered to uplift, archive, and document the histories of some of Congressional’s most celebrated gay rights activists. We gathered the grave rubbings and will be the material used for MJ’s Fold-In at Congressional’s Gays & Graves Festival.

MJ (she/her) has built a socially-engaged arts practice alongside a studio craft in glass making. As a participant in the Fold-In, you would be greeted by MJ and offered a chance to hear her story about Eon (they/them), a beloved, departed friend. It’s a story about love, memory, and the kind of grief that doesn’t entirely go away as much as shift in its weight, size, or shape. It’s a grief that she believes we universally experience, one that in working with Congressional Cemetery for the first time, reminds her that “all of our grief is connected”.

As we pour over some of the grave rubbings, she shares more of her story:

“Eon was the first person that I loved, that I had a close relationship with, who was openly gay. I’m sure that I have family members that are closeted, but Eon was the first person to be authentically themselves. And they were doing it in a space that wasn’t a super easy place.”

As students together at “The Academy” (The Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics, and Computing), they shared an almost instant bond over recycling, a recent break up, and ice cream. Eon went on to Twin Cities and then the University of Chicago for grad school; MJ moved to DC. They spend holidays together with Eon’s family. When Eon got sick with brain cancer, the crane folding process became a way for MJ to process her friend’s illness and her own grief. Eon passed in January 2017, having been denied medical care because of their gender expression.

Dani (they/them), Eon’s sibling, and their child and partner sit and begin telling their stories. Not just memories of times they shared together, but what these new moments of gathering at the Fold-In means for remembering Eon. For Dani and MH, and others who felt Eon’s presence in their lives, these Fold-Ins are ways to stay connected to them; as Dani shares: “hearing little stories about Eon that I hadn’t heard yet—cause there’s always gonna be new ones—I feel like that really just helps me feel like a part of Eon is still here”.

The grave rubbings workshop was a first: the first time MJ formally worked in a cemetery, and the first time Congressional has integrated a social arts practice like MJ’s into its programming. The grave rubbings made in the workshop will be cut and shared at the Gays & Graves Festival Fold-In. The exchange of community hands between grave rubbings, cutting, prepping, and then folding a paper crane to completion, builds on ideas of connectivity; the crane becoming a collection of fingerprints that link us together as a community rooted in supporting Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people and the broader LGBTQIA+ community. The Fold-Ins become a community space that brings joy in the exchange of grief; it invites an unburdening of the heaviness of these memories to “transmutes the pain; and give hope and meaning” to grief. Gays & Graves will also premier a public exhibition of fifty glass origami cranes made by MJ, arranged to adorn Gay Corner in commemoration of the stories that continue to be shared. This collection of paper and glass cranes will grow throughout the Fold-In and wash Gay Corner in color and pattern as a joyful testament to our gathering.

Get some friends together, make a rainbow with your bodies, and go fold some birds. When people ask you what you’re doing say ‘I’m folding cranes and thinking about how we can build a community where trans people are safe to be their authentic selves’.

Please join the artist and Congressional Cemetery in continuing this story, at the Gays & Graves Fold-In on June 21st from 11:30 am – 3:30 pm. The Fold-In will conclude with a community processional to Gay Corner to place all the final folded paper cranes.