Artist Dying to Have Your Cremated Ashes

(April 20) -- If you're dying to support the arts, an artist in Tempe, Ariz., would love to hear from you. Especially if you have some ashes of a beloved family member you can spare.

That's because Daniel Ortega is an artist who specializes in ashwork, a medium that mixes "cremains" -- or cremated remains -- with stone, plants and dirt to create one-of-a-kind black and white or color works of art.

Courtesy Daniel Ortega

Daniel Ortega, an artist in Tempe, Ariz., is dying to make paintings using the cremated ashes of dead humans and is offering a free painting to someone who donates ashes to him. Ortega has done nearly 100 ashworks, but only three or four with human remains.

So far, most of Ortega's paintings have used the cremains from dogs or cats (except for one he did of a beloved pet lizard), but now he wants to branch out and use human cremains.

"My niece sent me her boyfriend's ashes, and I made a memorial to him out of those," Ortega said, adding that she liked the final results.

He did too. So much so that he is offering to make a piece of art free of charge to a lucky person willing to send him the ashes of a beloved family member for one of his pieces.

Ortega, 56, is dead serious.

"They do have to pay for shipping, and since the painting is free, I can't guarantee how big it will be," he said.

This is quite a generous offer. Ortega doesn't make a killing on the ashworks for deceased dogs and kitty cats who've kicked the bucket, but he usually sells them for between $200 and $900 apiece. That's nothing to sneeze at, unless the ashes get in your nose, of course.

Courtesy Daniel Ortega

Ortega gets as much as $900 for paintings like this one, which uses the ashes of a beloved pet lizard. (Courtesy Daniel Ortega)

Ortega has made an ash of himself and the art world since Nov. 1, 2001, when he was in San Diego and attended a Day of the Dead celebration in the aftermath of 9/11.

At first, he held off launching the morbid tributes because he was worried that people wouldn't accept it, but the idea wouldn't die. Knowing that human ashes might be difficult, he decided to focus on dead pets. Finally, he called the local Humane Society to ask what it did with the ashes of unwanted pets who get euthanized.

As a result, Ortega hooked up with a crematorium truck driver whose job was to take pet ashes to a Los Angeles landfill. Once Ortega convinced the driver he wanted to turn the ashes into sincere pet tributes, he managed to get five pounds of powdered dogs and cats for experimentation.

Turning the ashes into an artistic medium took some getting used to. Ortega said he sometimes has to mill the ashes to get them into a powdery form suitable for putting on a canvas, and crush any bone fragments down to the same form as well.

Ortega doesn't turn the powdery pet pieces into paint, but he does brush them onto the canvas. Other times, he presses the ashes together under high heat to make rocks -- or "terastones" -- out of old Rover.

Courtesy Daniel Ortega

Ortega works from a studio in Tempe, Ariz.

Of course, an artist like Ortega can't be limited to just one medium. He said his paintings use all sorts of organic compounds besides dead animal or human ashes. Sometimes, he adds coffee grounds, horse manure and goat pellets ("You know what those are, right?" he asked.)

Ortega said people interested in sending their ashes should contact him through his website and make arrangements to send the ashes via registered mail.

"Let me know what colors and symbols you want on the art, and I will send back whatever ashes I don't use," Ortega said, adding that usually he uses just two to three pounds of ash, only about one-third of the dust of a cremated adult male.

"That's about half a pitcher, and don't worry, I've never dropped any ashes on the ground," he said.