Richard Barnett, 37, of Loganville, Ga., says he always does his best thinking while cutting grass.
Barnett was mowing his Georgia property one day last spring when an idea came to him: to use his deceased stepbrother’s ashes in a portrait.
Lance Tilton, 29, had been killed in an automobile accident on May 6 near the Rocky Face exit on I-75 South.
Tilton, an Atlanta-area drummer with a mellow personality, played a nightclub gig in Chattanooga on the night before the crash. He apparently fell asleep at the wheel of his Nissan Maxima while driving to his home in Georgia, his stepsiblings say. A passenger in the car was hurt but survived, they said.
Tilton’s body was mangled by the force of the wreck, and his family chose to have his remains cremated.
Barnett’s idea was to incorporate Tilton’s ashes into a framed portrait of the young musician. He hoped the portrait would become a focal point for the family’s memories. (See a photo of the artwork on page ??.)
“It was embarrassing and scary to say anything to my parents [about the idea],” Barnett explained. “It’s a strange concept, I know.”
Finally, though, he found the courage to explain his idea to his stepmother, Sandy Barnett, and she agreed he should proceed. He wanted to give her “the gift of viewing her son every day.”
Mr. Barnett, who was not a practiced artist, said he had faith he could draw a portrait of his stepbrother and use the ashes as a way to give the artwork dimension and sentiment.
He started by sketching a pencil portrait of Tilton, complete with his cap and goatee. When we talked, Barnett demonstrated how he applied pinches of the ashes to the drawing using latex gloves.
“It sounds morbid when you talk about it. At first, I thought it would bug me to touch the ashes,” he said. “But when I was working with them, it didn’t phase me.”
The portrait took about 40 hours, Barnett said, and the results are rather striking. The portrait has a three-dimensional quality and contains subtle shades of color.
“We haven’t had any negative responses from anyone who’s seen it,” says Kari Sledge, Barnett’s sister.
In fact, the family has been so pleased with portrait that Barnett has started marketing his ash portraits as a service. He also has done animal portraits using the ashes of deceased pets. His website is www.ashportraits.com.
Barnett said part of any proceeds from this enterprise will be used as grants to help fund school music programs in honor of his deceased stepbrother.
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