Aesthetics of Death

The Gate on the Boulevard
Marie-Theresa Hernández
Sugar Land TX
2004




Leaning Virgin
Marie-Theresa Hernández
Sugar Land, TX
2003





Gravestones and Small Statues
Marie-Theresa Hernández
Sugar Land, TX
2003



Virgin and the Beetle
Marie-Theresa Hernández
Sugar Land, TX
2004

The cemetery is for laborers who worked for Imperial Sugar (and their direct descendants). I used to go there when I was a little girl and distinctly remember a water pump with a handle. I used to move it back and forth for what seemed to be hours, and only trickles of water would come out. It was probably my small size because the adults around me could always get the water to flow from the water pump. When I began research on the book, I did not realize just how old it was.
I first thought it was from the early 20th century. It now appears that the cemetery was for slaves from a pre-civil war plantation.

The book is titled "Cemeteries of Ambivalent Desire: Narratives of the Deep South in a Southeast Texas Graveyard"
to be published by Texas A&M University Press. Release date winter 2008.







© Photo and Text
Copyright 2007 by Marie-Theresa Hernández. All rights reserved.