ARTS: Recycled Flowers of Remembrance at Lakewood Cemetery

Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis is known for its beautiful grounds, a dedicated natural space now accredited as a Level 2 Arboretum, and is open to the public almost every day of the year. The institution also offers an inaugural Artist in Residence program, sponsored by the Lakewood Heritage Foundation. Four artists-in-residence were selected for the 2025-26 cycle, including Diana Eicher. A Minnesota native, Eicher found her true love in printmaking and paper-making during her senior year of college in Santa Cruz.

“I loved everything about the printmaking community,” said Eicher, “working collaboratively, working with other people, being creative in a space together. Then I decided to get my master’s degree in printmaking.”

After completing a masters degree in Hawaii in printmaking — which includes screen printing, woodcuts, and lithography — she returned home to Minnesota, taught at the University of Minnesota for five years, then took her current job as Director of the Printmaking and Paper-making Studios and adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), where she’s been for 23 years.

Eicher applied to the Lakewood residence program with an idea that came to her from a past relationship, when she often received flowers as a gift. “I was always sad to throw the petals away, so I started making paper from the flowers because I wanted to preserve them. I thought, ‘What about all of the flowers [at Lakewood] for people’s loved ones — as a way to commemorate these lives and the relationships?’”

The Process of Making Art

In coordination with the Lakewood grounds crew, Eicher scheduled times to pick up flowers that would have been discarded. “I had so many beautiful flowers to work with — incredible bouquets of lilies and roses.” She worked with small sculptures, ribbons, and flowers she would sometimes dry. Eicher completed 50 pieces at the MCAD paper studio on nights and weekends that are now on display at Lakewood.

For paper-making, she says, “You take paper pulp and put it in a beater, mixing it. Then you put it in a vat. You could incorporate the flowers in with the paper pulp, or you can make a sheet of paper and put the flowers on top, called couching. You couch a sheet of paper — you flatten it and squeeze all the water out — then you put it in a paper press to dry. It takes a couple days.”

Eicher included far more petals in her earlier work than the pieces she’s finished more recently. She says the most exciting part is taking the paper out of the dryer and seeing how the colors unexpectedly shift or shrink. “I didn’t want to make typical handmade floral paper that looked like you could get it at a stationery store,” Eicher says. “That’s why I want to use all these petals; I wanted to make unique paper that looked different than something you could buy.”

The consistency and color of the flowers depended on the season Eicher picked them up. Winter flowers were muted and wet from the snow. Flowers picked up in April were more vibrant from spring rain showers.

The act of collecting flowers left by people’s gravesides and funeral arrangements was emotional for Eicher — an aspect of the creation process she wasn’t prepared for.

“One time I picked up the most beautiful bouquet — one of those spreads that would be on a casket — of mostly blue flowers with white. It must have been a husband for his wife, because [a card] said ‘Loving Wife.’ Sometimes I would pick them up and cry. I didn’t know who it was, but they lost this person who meant so much to them. I was so aware of the different relationships we have with people.”

Eicher’s artwork was displayed in the lobby of Lakewood’s Welcome Center, where people come during visiting hours. “There’s been a  range of reactions. I’ve been here a couple times when a family had lost somebody. One person got in touch with me and wants me to do a commission piece for his grandmother out of the flowers left for her.”

The artwork has a quiet power — living plants left by a gravesite or at a memorial service, immortalized in handcrafted materials, and viewed by others.

Innate Value

As an arts educator, Eicher’s priority is that students create art where they are at. “If they want to draw textures and shapes, they can do that, or they can do a bird. I don’t want to tell anybody, ‘This is what you need to make.’”

Classes she teaches at MCAD and in the community have had restorative effects for people healing from trauma. One person told her, “I have bad PTSD, and I can’t believe how much this calmed me down to just sit and carve this block.”

 

 

 

Eicher will continue teaching community classes in screen printing and wood block printmaking this fall at Hennepin County libraries, as well as college courses for MCAD students. Her residency at Lakewood ends Saturday, May 2, when visiting hours end at 4:30pm. 

 

Diana Eicher’s website

Lakewood Artists in Residence

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