"Funeral Party for the Living" will take place on New Year's Day at 5pm at 14 Pews. The event will include visitation and drinking, eulogy writing assistance, a funeral service open to the public to speak, sing, etc., a funeral sound procession created by the audience along with whatever instruments they'd like to bring, a funeral pyre for burning symbolic items contributed by the public, and a funeral food pot luck and recipe swap, so bring a dish!
Funeral attire is encouraged.
This event is free and open to the public. Observers are welcome.
Contact info.: emily@emilysloan.com, 713-582-1198
For more info. visit:
www.thelivingwake.blogspot.comPlease feel free to re-post and share this event!
Organizer/host: Internationally unknown artist,
Emily Sloan was born on April 1, 1983 outside of Beulah, Texas to John Bartholomew Sloan and Sue Nan Hoya Sloan. She presently survives and practices art inspired by healing and mourning rituals, longings, and social contexts. Outcomes include object making, performance, social involvement and spaces, and curating for unique venues including a contemporary art salon,
The Kenmore: an exhibition object, and a secret gallery hidden behind a bookcase. In 2010, Sloan has had a solo show at Redbud Gallery in Houston, Texas;
Napping Affects Performance (NAP), a participation and performance project at Art League Houston which is ongoing in Houston, east Texas, and upstate New York; Wash, a public, all day performance hosted by Gallery 1724 (Houston); organized a
Salon des Refusés; and founded the
Universal Nap Church.
About
14 Pews: Located at 800 Aurora St., Houston, Texas 77009, this Houston landmark is the oldest white wooden church in the Heights. Built in 1924, it has housed the Sunset Heights Church of Christ, Aurora Picture Show, and is now home to 14 Pews. 14 Pews is a non-profit microcinema providing regular screenings of independent documentaries and feature films, along with 4 annual film festivals and several affordable film/video educational classes. For more information, please visit:
www.14pews.org
Front of the 14 Pews church with mourning wreaths on the doors.
View from behind the desk of the "Eulogy Writing Deaconesses." During the visitation before the funeral, a eulogy writing service was available for attendees needing assistance or last minute advice. 
The fashionably mournful.
A "Eulogy for Art" was read. 
A brass band lead by Nick Cooper.
The back yard funeral pyre where participants said good-bye to such things as addictions, jobs, bras, lovers, and hemeroids, among other things.
The funeral food potluck included foods such as ambrosia salad, funeral pie, severed arm cake, cooper coins for the afterlife, and sweet funeral wine.
