Nonprofit Turns Ashes Into Art and Healing

Art can be a powerful tool when coping with grief. A new nonprofit is putting this power to work using loved ones’ cremated remains to create meaningful pieces that are paired with time spent in reflection and healing.

Ian McCartor is a life-long artist, but also a registered nurse, grief counselor, and now, the President and Executive Director of the non-profit, The Ash Rose Foundation.

Using Cremated Remains in Powerful Art

After training as an artist and a nurse, McCartor realized he could combine his talents and work to create a beautiful image of participants’ loved ones using a small portion of their cremated remains or “ashes,” a process where he could also walk them through over a month of journaling and one-on-one meetings to share stories and talk about their grief. All participants are also invited to take part in an art show where they can join in a community of others who are traveling the same path and can “share stories of love and transformation.”

After a suggestion from his mom, McCartor says he began making these portraits of remembrance about five years ago. As a trained grief counselor and after a decade working in hospice, he provides more than just a work of art to families. “We’ve seen it become so personal and so involved for the family to offer something so tender and precious as cremation remains. Many times they’ve been waiting for something like this,” he said. “What a supreme honor to be entrusted with this precious material, both physical and emotional,” he said. “It has such a power to it.”

Mission: Creating Beauty After Loss

The Ash Rose Foundation’s official mission is to “provide compassionate emotional support and personalized creative projects to help individuals and communities heal through transformative artistic expression.” McCartor believes that by blending the power of art with grief counseling, the participants can find “healing, purpose, and connection in their grief journeys.”

McCartor says he chose the rose rising from ash as a symbol for the nonprofit because of its symbolism of transformation and transcendence. He hopes that participants can find personal meaning and create something beautiful after profound loss.

With a small amount of ash, McCartor mixes charcoal with the cremated remains using a mortar and pestle and then uses a paintbrush to add the material to a canvas. It is neither strictly a painting nor a drawing, but a mixed media piece that uses as much of the ash as the family desires. For some, a subtle amount is enough; others choose to see more of the texture of the material.

Transforming Grief Through Art 

McCartor says the process of making these works helps move the families through their experience of grief. “These people who come forward with such pain and such weight of this grief learn to see all that really as love — and turn that and transform it and transcend it into a sense of strength moving forward in their lives. The art is just a meditation of that, it’s a reminder, a daily presence of all that intention, of how to turn that pain into purpose, and that love into life again,” he told Tulip Cremation.

The nonprofit allows families to participate without cost through the generosity of other donors. He says it also funds the ability to present the picture to the families in a moment that is both surprising and healing after their month-long reflections. “In a world where people want it now, it’s good to wait sometimes and see what comes from the waiting — knowing that it’s coming. They have to stay present. That holds its own value,” he explained.

Find eight more creative ways to use cremation ashes and discover more about McCartor, his nonprofit, his business, and his art.