British Urns of Endearment

By Amy Cunningham

Dreams of flight and thoughts of freedom surround nearly every death, so bird imagery on urns for cremated remains makes sense to me. I've also been craving more toppers or finials on natural basket urns, and find these feathered friends optimistic and comforting.

Jemima Fisher created her first, simpler fabric urn (without ornament) to hold the cremated remains of her mother who was, like Jemima, a British textile artist and doll maker. Influenced by a fabric bowl her mother had given to her and after a lot of practice, Jemima incorporated her mother's favorite colors and materials into the whole endeavor, and was pleased with the organic, natural feel. After all that work, the urn was filled with her mom's cremated remains and buried under a tree.

Would you work a long time to create something beautiful, and then bury it? That's what I love about this. Some people think that only the simplest wooden cube-shaped urns are suitable for burial, but there's a strong argument for burying vessels that are not only biodegradeable, but also elegant, rare and precious. "My mother would have loved it, I'm sure," Jemima says.

Making the first urn "was a cathartic process, but also emotionally draining, and although I wanted to continue creating beautiful biodegradable and ornamental urns for others, it was not the right time to begin," Jemima writes on her website. So she took a break and has only recently started selling fabric urns to customers.

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Meet Jemima, the textile artist behind Skylark Urns.

Placing removable birds on top of the vessels is a newer concept, and Jemima advises families to retain them as keepsakes after the burial (if there is one). The idea for a bird came from the Mouse Man Furniture based in North Yorkshire, England, where every piece of hand-made furniture had a little mouse carved into it. With the birds came new urn shapes, which I think you'll agree are wonderful.

Jemima's urns generally sell for 250-300 British pounds, which comes to $460-$550 dollars including postage. Fabulous urn vendor Adrienne Crowther also stocks and sells many gorgeous things.