APEX, N.C. (AP) – Of all the pieces Julie Moore crafts in her home studio, the most popular is a brightly colored fabric vessel she calls “the party jar.”
But in this case, the guest of honor is inside the jar.
“People that are vivacious and celebrate life – this one is what they really like,” she says, lifting the ornately woven lid from the urn. “I want it to be a piece of art that they look at and they don’t think, ‘Oh. That’s Dad’s ashes.'”
Cremations in the United States have tripled since 1985, accounting for about 44 percent of all “dispositions,” according to the Cremation Association of North America. With families becoming increasingly transient, the organization expects that to grow to 55 percent over the next decade.
And as cremations soar, more people are looking for urns that, well, don’t look like urns.