Jo Hanson was buried March 17, 2007 at the Mary Magdelena Catholic Cemetery in Bolinas. (formerly Briones Graveyard established in 1853). Old tombstones dating back to the late 1800’s grace the bucolic church yard. In the Druid section of the historic cemetery, under the enormous stretch of a vast eucalyptus tree, in a plot she had selected, she was laid to rest.

It was a scene right out of “Crab Orchard Cemetery” the unprecedented installation she first exhibited in 1974 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Jo Hanson was a mother, an art mother and an earth mother. In her life she showed the way to a sustainable art practice, to a definition of eco-art.

Her daily sweep of the block outside her San Francisco home and her catalog of findings is an extraordinary accumulation of trash as art and social documentary.  In 1990 at the SF City Dump (now Recology) she established the an artist-in-residency program that continues today. In 1996 with Susan Liebowitz Steinmen she was a co-founder and co-producer of WEAD, the Women Environmental Artists Directory that lives on as an online resource and offers exhibition opportunites.

Jo has had a simple yet profound influence on my life and my thoughts about death.

In life her daily sidewalk sweep as an example of — do something everyday — in the small accumulation of actions, one can make a difference — do it right where you are — you don’t have to boil the ocean or to go to the ends of the earth : the sidewalk, the gutter, anyplace can be a site of attention.

In her death, she showed the way to a new kind of burial: direct, in the earth; so eloquent, so effortless.

Her small body wrapped in a cotton shroud laid on a plain board. There was no casket, no elaborations. After family, friends, and fans spoke about her exemplary life and her message of love, she was gently lowered into the dirt grave. Everyone helped with the burial, adding handfuls and shovelfuls of dirt.