Each Little World

The Great Piece of Turf

After I paired a collection of Mark's pictures of white plants with Whistler's painting, "Symphony in White," Barbara H., a longtime reader of this blog, noted that Arisaema sikokianum reminded her of Munch's painiting, "The Scream." That comment made me wonder how many other plants had some kind of relationship to art works. 

Mark immediately pointed out that the photo he'd just taken of our weedy "meadow" was reminsicent of "The Great Piece of Turf," a watercolor masterpiece by Albrech Durer. Durer's work is a study of a seemingly random group of wild plants, including dandelion and greater plantain. How many other plant/art combinations we can find in the garden remains to be seen.

Grow it forward

To celebrate Spring, Timber Press is having an "Edibles Contest" which closes this Friday. They are giving away a great gardening package that includes organic heirloom vegetable seeds, a bare root fruit tree and an "edibles library" of wonderful Timber Press books. I rarely enter contests and I don't have enough sun or space to grow food in my garden.

But while reading about this contest, I discovered the fantastic garden poster below (from a different heirloom seed contest). The poster — by Joe Wirtheim — is from the Victory Garden of Tomorrow which offers a whole series of great garden images as offset prints, screen prints, postcards and on t-shirts. Check them out; I think you will fall in love with their retro design style!

I am receiving no remuneration for this announcement; just love the art and want to spread the word.

Red twigs

One of the benefits of an early Spring visit to Olbrich Botanical Gardens is that you can see and enjoy all the backbone plantings of the garden. Trees and shrubs and grasses stand out in all their glory when there are no flowers to distract you. And nothing shines like the colorful stems of dogwoods and willows ... and a few other unexpectedly bright branches.

Four fabulous ideas ...

to enjoy, to re-interpret in your own garden or to just plain steal outright. These are the images that have stayed with me from the 2010 Olbrich Botanical Gardens Home and Garden Tour, that Mark and I went on more than a week ago. And just as I suspected, going with others — in this case our friends Dennis and Mary — meant that I saw more memorable vignettes than I would ever have noticed on my own! Extra pairs of eyes may be the gardener's most important design tool.

 

 

 

A Day in the Country

HE SAID: I woke up Thursday morning to a pot of hot coffee and ginger scones drizzled with honey, all served on the deck with the New York Times. There were also a couple of lovely anniversary presents: "Love Poems from the Japanese" translated by Kenneth Rexroth and a CD called "Class of 38," a compilation of works by composers born in 1938. Some of them — William Bolcom, John Harbison, Gloria Coates, Charles Wouorinen — I know and like. The others I'm anxious to hear. (I'm listening to the music as I write this.)

Because she had suggested pottery, I told Linda that she'd have to pick out her present herself. So, after spending the bulk of the morning lazing on the deck, enjoying the garden, we grabbed the checkbook and a camera and headed out of town. There's a bridge being re-consructed on County B, our normal route to Heather's (above). As a result we were forced to take some unfamiliar roads — always a treat; but we needn't have worried about getting lost. "Heather" had placed classy signs at nearly every intersection guiding us to her joint overlooking the river in Rockdale.

I'm not a motorcycle fan. I've always thought that it wouldn't take me any time at all to kill myself if I ever tried to ride one. But this beauty in the parking lot of Heather's nearly took my breath away. I can understand why someone would want to ride a work of art. It almost seemed a desecration to have to put something as mundane as a license plate on it.

After Linda finished her burger and I my tenderloin sandwich and fries special (the Thursday special), we drove a mile or so down "B", past Dilemma Road and turned in at the sign for Cambridge Wood Fired Pottery. 

The address of Mark Skudlarek's pottery studio and home is "Tranquil Lane", and I don't believe there was ever a more appropriately named street. It is, in fact, more of a very long gravel driveway since they are the only ones who live on the lane; but it is a charming and tranquil place to visit.

Mark met us as we got out of the truck with his usual winning smile and enthusiastic handshake. When we mentioned that it was our anniversary he said that he and his wife Gaia had married within months of us. Mark and I also both graduated from St. John's in Minnesota, although some years apart. We spent the obligatory half hour catching up on personal news and politics before we excused ourselves to do some shopping in his indoor and outdoor sales areas while he went back to work throwing pots.

An earlier post had gotten Linda and I talking about art in the garden and how Mark's big pots looked so good almost anywhere we placed them. We decided then that we would think about adding at least one more big pot to our garden collection.

One of the reason's we are so enamored of Mark's work is that it is wood fired. The process is one that a 15th century Japanese artisan would be very familiar with. With very few exceptions, such as the modern pyrometer for measuring the extremely high temperatures reached in the kiln, very little has changed in the last 500 years. It still requires lots of wood and the patience and endurance to feed a fire continuously for three, five, or sometimes more days.

Mark's is a multi-chambered kiln, and he mentioned that he was rebuilding the third chamber. (The kiln is located under the roof behind the woodpiles and takes up most of the length of that space). While we were checking that out we were distracted by their chickens

Penned at night for their protection, during the day they roam around the studio and kiln shed. They didn't seem the least bit afraid of us

Linda was clearly smitten with the texture on this urn, and I certainly wouldn't have objected if she had decided that it was the one. But when we rejoined Mark in his studio he showed us three even larger pots he was working on. He explained how he had devised a way to add a makeshift concrete fly wheel to a commercial banding wheel to make a (not so) crude kick wheel for smoothing coil-built pots more efficiently.

Since his next firing is less than a month away, we decided to put off a decision until we saw these new works finished. 

By the time we got home we each had just enough time to get ready for work. But it was, by all accounts, a lovely way to spend an anniversary.

SHE SAID: Mark Skudlarek has his own beautiful Web site where you can see pictures of his pots and the firing process which is pretty amazing in a wood-fired kiln like his. The site also has a link to his Etsy online shop.

My garden odyssey: Art of the garden (concluded)

EPISODE XXXIV

HE SAID: Last week you said that an object is right when it works with the garden as a whole. What did you mean by that?

SHE SAID: Well, i remember early on that we spent a lot of time discussing the notions of East and West. When we were designing the Tsukubai, for instance, we had some fairly heated discussions about how "authentic" we should try to make it...

HE SAID: ...knowing full well that the term "authentic" would never apply to our garden as a Japanese garden.

SHE SAID:  So I said, why try. Why not draw from whatever influences attracted us but not be constrained by some other culture's definition of a garden.

HE SAID: I think that's when I first started using the word "analog" to describe a structure that is similar in function but one that evolved out of another culture. Like using copper piping for the flume in the Tsukubai instead of the traditional bamboo...

SHE SAID: ...or turning the English chimney pot into a lantern.

HE SAID: But, now that we have several more traditional looking lanterns, I'm not sure I feel the same way about the chimney pot. It's still a great garden ornament with a wonderful shape and patina, but does it still work as a lantern analog?

SHE SAID:  My point is: it doesn't have to. What's that old saying — consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds?

HE SAID: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." — Emerson (I looked it up.) But doesn't a certain amount of consistency make sense, contribute to the feeling of unity or wholeness we claim to be after.

SHE SAID:  Well, a couple of thoughts suggest themselves. One, I think we need to trust our instincts. We've made good decisions in the past, for the most part; and when we've been wrong, we've had the courage to admit it and banish the misfit object. And two, we're both artists. Why shouldn't we have art in our garden, real art which challenges its surroundings?

HE SAID: I don't know. I still think that the garden, as an artwork, should take precedence over art objects that are added to the garden.

SHE SAID:  Which brings us back to where we started: "an object is right when it works with the garden as a whole."

HE SAID: Do you think the crane is too much of a cliche?

SHE SAID:  I think we should give it a rest!

My garden odyssey: Art of the garden (continued)

EPISODE XXXIII

SHE SAID: I think we should talk about some of the things that are actually in our garden — you know, the man-made things you wanted to get rid of a couple of weeks ago.

HE SAID: I didn't really want to throw them all out; but I thought we should try to see them as others might, without our emotional attachment. The Valentine piece, for instance ...

SHE: It's staying!

HE: I made this piece for Linda one summer while she was away attend an art class in Door County, Wisconsin, as an out-of-season valentine. It consists of three discarded industrial saw blades of the type used to make cuts in concrete pavement. On them, I wrote "I Love You" in German ("Ich Liebe Dich") using a commercial rust inhibitor.

HE: Calm down; I'm not suggesting we get rid of it. But — honestly — how does it connect to our garden?

SHE: Well ... it's round like the window you're planning for the Tea House, and the Moon Garden and the circle around the Mica rock.

We bought this red rock which is riddled with mica because we couldn't resist. But when it came time to place it in the garden, we found that it didn't "fit" anywhere; it was too dramatic. Rather than trying to make it blend in, we finally decided to frame it within a circle of ivy.

HE: And it does have that nicely rusty surface which qualifies it for Wabi-Sabi status. But what is it doing there? What does it contribute to the overall vision of the garden?

SHE: I think it adds mystery, and poetry. It's never seemed to bother you when Ian Finlay added textual elements to his garden. Am I wrong, or aren't you quite fond of Little Sparta?

HE: OK, OK. But that was the whole point of his garden — the classical literary allusions. Do you think that it still works if we only have the one piece of text?

SHE: In our case, it's not the text that's important; it's the inclusion of objects that are compatible with the garden as a whole. 

This was a pipe standard for a basketball backboard and basket that was set in concrete next to the driveway when we bought the house. We tried, without success, to turn it into a garden sculpture. 

HE: Remember how we struggled with the baskeball standard? You so desperately wanted that to work as sculpture; and no matter what we tried, what color we painted it, where we placed it, we were never happy with it. 

SHE: Unlike the obelisk, which has always looked great no matter how you configured it or where we put it.

This sculpture is made of 84 pieces of limestone recycled from a building project on the University of Wisconsin campus. Mark cut each pair of pieces slightly smaller that the next which gave them a gradual taper as they were stacked. Beginning with an obelisk arrangement, this is the third different stacking pattern we've used as the sculpture has been moved from place to place.

HE: Which reminds me, I've been thinking it's about time I tried something new with it.

SHE: Not until you get the Tea House finished! And maybe not even then, as the area around it has now all been landscaped using it as a focal point.

HE: Getting back to the subject, what about the cello piece?

This is a cast iron form used to make 3/4 size cellos. We found it at a local shop — "Unearthed" — that specializes in recycled industrial products for the home.

SHE: I like it.

HE: I don't know. I find it somehow too literal, not literary, but concrete, for the garden. I'd like to try it inside. I think music is more of an indoor idea.

SHE: What about the bells? We've got what, eight bells in the garden? What's the difference?

Paolo Soleri casts these bells and sells them to support Arcosanti, an "ecological human habitat" he's been building in Arizona since 1970.

HE: Well the bells are as much about the sound as they are about their form. They're about interacting — with the wind in the case of the Soleri bells — and with people for the ones that need to be struck to make a sound. The cello, for me, is about the contradictions: the heavy iron version of a delicate instrument, pitted rust versus polished wood.

SHE: I'm willing to give it a try inside. Oh, and I thought of something else that works that's round — our ceramic platters.

A wood-fired stoneware platter, by Mark Skudlarek of Cambridge Woodfired Pottery near Cambridge, Wisconsin, hangs outside our backdoor. (It is 18 inches in diameter).

HE: I won't argue with you about that. There's something about wood-fired ceramics that just seems to be a natural in the garden. 

SHE: How long ago was it that I took you out to Mark Skudlarek's to see his big pots?

HE: And we came home with the biggest one he had.

Wood-fired pot by Mark Skudlarek, approximately 24 inches high.

SHE: And never regretted it.

My garden odyssey: Art of the garden

EPISODE XXXII

HE SAID: I have a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting. As an art student, I was taught that all areas of the canvas are equally important. As a gardener, I believe that principle still applies. 

I feel very fortunate that I found a life partner and gardening partner whose degrees are also in art —  art education and textile design. Without a shared aesthetic vision, we would never have been able to collaborate on our gardens for the last twenty years.

SHE SAID: Which is not to say it's all been smooth sailing. It seems we never stop discussing, negotiating, explaining, arguing and, yes, occasionally fighting over, what should or shouldn't go into the garden.

HE: That's an important point. What doesn't, or shouldn't go into a garden is often the thing that makes the difference in whether or not it is successful.

We visited a garden recently that had a nicely built small water feature near the deck at the back of the house. It was decently proportioned, had a pleasant sounding waterfall, good rock work — but it was overwhelmed with tchotchkes. To make matters worse, they were not consistent in theme or scale. A miniature maritime figurine sat right below a nearly life-size ceramic mountain goat. I'm sorry to disappoint, but I didn't have the heart to photograph it.

SHE: Mark drove home that day determined to remove anything man-made from our garden.

HE: But during a survey of our garden that evening, I decided that the line between natural and man-made is not all that distinct. And that there is a lot more involved in creating a successful garden than whether or not it includes a ceramic mountain goat. 

SHE: We've been talking together about where "My Garden Odyssey" should go from here; now that we've brought you pretty much up to date with the construction process.

HE: Of course, we'll be continuing work on the Tea House and doing other projects which we'll document for you here.

SHE: But we thought it would be helpful for us...

HE: And maybe entertaining for you...

SHE: If we explored some of the thinking that brought us to the present state of affairs in our yard. It's easy to forget all the steps, all the missteps, all the trial and error along the way. So we thought it might be a good idea to review our odyssey from the point of view of our aesthetic decisions.

HE: As I said at the beginning, everything is important; each element added, left out or removed contributes in some way to the totality. 

People sometimes ask me if I'm still making art. My answer is unequivocal. Of course I am; I'm making a garden.

Every element I used to employ in creating a painting — color, texture, balance, scale, rhythm — have all gone into making our garden. But it's infinitely more complex in that a garden adds a third, forth and, possibly, a fifth dimension. It's not flat, after all. And it changes with the seasons, cyclical time. But it also changes continuously in linear time. Plants grow larger, mature and die, affecting the plants around them in turn.

SHE: You're waxing a bit philosophical there, Sparky. How about coming back down to earth — no pun intended.

HE: OK. I think we should start again, at the beginning.

SHE: Which beginning?

HE: I know, it's tough to narrow down. At first I thought that we'd talk about man-made objects: art in the garden. But I soon began to realize that, conceptually, the difference between a sheared hedge and a marble statue, between a chair and  rock, is not that great. The distinction between "natural" and "man-made" dissolves in a garden since the garden itself is a product of man.

SHE: I was thinking this would be a two part post.

HE: And I'm thinking we should just see where it leads. 

SHE: Maybe we should give this whole concept some more thought.

HE: I think you're right. And next week, we can add some pictures. This is going to be great!