Here’s a question you may not have thought to ask yourself: what design would you like for your casket?
Making plans for death is not exactly what most people do in their free time, but a business in Edna, Texas wants to change that. Trey Ganem Designs creates custom caskets. Picture a camouflage casket with deer horns for a hunter, or one that looks like bright pink marble, or one painted with players from a favorite sports team. For Trey Ganem, it’s an opportunity for art.
Ganem, who had a TV show on the Outdoor Channel, had a friend who passed away and thought at the funeral, he thought
“Man, it would be awesome if we could bring back the so-called campfire stories,” he thought. “So when you’re looking up there… you remember all the good things about him instead of just looking up there and being sad and saying, ‘Man, this is it.'”
Ganem said one of his favorite caskets was for Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Percy Sledge with luminous paint and a 1950s microphone that played “When A Man Loves A Woman.”
Ganem, who says he’s done 81 children’s caskets in the past seven months, wants the casket to reflect the life of these children, rather than simply their deaths.
“If this kid loved karate and the Ninja Turtles then I incorporate that into the casket,” Ganem says. “It’s not morbid – it’s beautiful, even though it’s sad… All the kids come and say, ‘Whoa, Mom – look at that!’ instead of ‘Why is he in that box?'”
Listen to the full interview in the audio player above.
