Jo Hanson (San Francisco, 19?? - 2007), left two major legacies to the art world. One was the encouragement of environmental art, and the other was the single best known of Hanson's works, the "Crab Orchard Cemetery".
The Peninsula Art Museum acquired most of the original works in "Crab Orchard Cemetery" from Hanson's estate and plans to reinstall them as "Crab Orchard Cemetery Revisited". The exhibition opens July 12 and closes Sept. 20.
The original "Crab Orchard Cemetery" was exhibited in museum and university galleries across the country. Hanson duplicated the tombstones (in styrofoam and ink) and photographed the environment of the cemetery on huge rolls of negative film which will line the gallery walls. She recorded the birds and other environmental sounds of the original cemetery to complete the visitor's experience.
As an early environmentalist, Hanson invented the trash-into-treasures genre of artmaking. During her tenure on the San Francisco Art Commission, she established the Artist in Residence Program at SF Recycling (NorCal Transfer Station).
