Reading a Garden II

I had no idea that Hestercombe would be one of the highlights of my trip to the south of England this summer. I didn't even know it existed. Our good friends, Pauline and Chris, had visited us when we stayed at The Bothy in Ireland the previous summer. They had the perfect garden getaway planned for me while the rest of the troop went to the archives in Taunton, Somerset. I had two hours strolling Hestercombe with my camera. It was a beautiful day and there were few visitors. I felt like the garden was all mine. I couldn't imagine that my husband and the rest of our small group would rather have their noses in musty books.

Hestercombe, developed over several centuries, is a collection of three gardens and several buildings which have all undergone restoration work in recent years.

The Georgian Landscape Garden created in the eighteenth century was designed to give the impression of a classic landscape with grottoes, lakes, temples etc. Flowers were a minor design element while trees and shrubs play a more prominent role in the overall design . This garden style has seats and small buildings where visitors can enjoy views similar to landscape paintings - hence Landscape Garden. This was new information for me and it was only after I got home and began to read a book I'd purchased that I discovered this. I would love to go back and begin shooting from each sitting space to capture the landscape as it was meant to be seen.

The Victorian Terrace on the south side of the house is a beautiful garden with colourful period style bedding schemes which are changed twice a year.

The Edwardian Formal Garden was created in the early twentieth century by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The planting scheme designed by Gertrude Jekyll uses borders of graduated colour. The Formal Garden is considered the finest example of design created by this famous partnership.

From the Victorian Terrace Garden looking down on the Formal Garden

I was taken with the design of the Formal Garden, particularly the repetition of circular and semi- circular motifs which worked very well to relieve the hard edged rectangular and and angled shapes.







I have so much more to share ...

The chair in art

Lynda Lehmann brought my interest in chairs to the forefront with a recent post. One of the positive aspects of writing a blog and following other blogs is the stimulation and cross pollination of ideas. This post is a perfect example of this. I wouldn't be thinking about chairs today if I hadn't read Lynda's post.

There's a long history of chairs used as subject matter in art. Arthur Danto, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, wrote a thoughtful essay examining the use of the chair in artistic representation. He begins his discussion by focusing on a first century Buddhist carving of a chair placed below a tree and flanked by a group of alluring maidens who are sent to seduce the Buddha. Riders can be seen in the background. In this temptation scene, one never sees the Buddha, only an empty seat with a cushion is shown to symbolize his presence.

The second chair he speaks of is also empty. It is the unoccupied, rustic, yellow chair with a pipe resting on it that van Gogh painted in the late 1880's. The simplicity of the chair references van Gogh's "conspicuous humility". Danto refers to this work as "Self-portrait as chair". van Gogh's painting of Gauguin's chair around the same time was also unoccupied, but it was elaborate, authoritative and arrogant. If you would like to explore these two images further, this site provides visuals and an interesting commentary.

The final chair Danto explored is the electric chair Warhol used in 1967 in different formats. Danto describes it as an obscene and terrifying image and points out that it was an electric chair, not a flat bed or electric noose that the penologists came up with. Why a chair?

On Flickr, BillyRook questions artists' fascination with empty chairs. He decides that his interest is piqued only when the chair is out of place either spatially or temporally. It is this out-of-place-ness that raises interest and transforms this everyday object into a metaphor. I agree with this.

Jerseyside, NL 2006

Whenever I look at this photo I took several years ago while exploring my childhood haunts, it is a physical reminder of all the people who lived, worked and played in this area. The idea of a chair as a proxy for human presence is an intriguing one. There is presence and absence in this image. This duality is often explored in my work.

What's in a circle?

Shadows of Summer (8 x 10) paper, photo transfer, acrylic paint and gels on board
Ryall (2008)

This small work combines memories of different aspects of my experiences in The Millennium Garden at Birr Castle, Ireland. I am always drawn to circular motifs and use them repeatedly in my work. The brick opening ( referred to as a moongate in garden design) was intriguing. It allowed you to choose a view looking into or out of the garden. I loved the framed glimpse from both angles. I spent time sitting in the circle and contemplating both views and what they meant. I also imagined all sorts of other views that the circle could contain that related to the symbolism the circle has generated through the centuries.

The circle is a universal symbol of unity, wholeness, infinity, protectiveness, eternity,the godess and female power. To earth-centered religions as well as to many contemporary pagans, it represents the feminine spirit or force, the cosmos or a spiritualized Mother Earth. What is contained within a circle is often considered sacred.