Tag: Garden art
Back to Back Sculpture by Simon Jago
These two souls are my contribution to this week’s photo challenge. What could be more local than a relationship?
The artist, Simon Jago, is also a professional set designer with a mastery of the most essential tool in a sculptor’s toolbox – space. The sculpture seems to tell a slightly different story from every angle. It would have been interesting to walk all around it, but the setting didn’t invite that. Luckily the artist is showing the opposite view on his website.
The wall that divides these two figures is slender but sturdy – part physical, part metaphorical. He has placed a steadying foot on the blue floor/plinth that is structurally linked to hers. Their body language mirrors each other: the barrier of his left side reflects the barrier of her right; each downcast head obliquely angled in counterpoise to the other.
It’s funny how tempting it is to judge, even faced with a sculpture. There’s a lesson in that. Who is to blame? What should they do? Is there even a problem? As the artist asks, why do they look so alone? Continue reading
Celebrating Man-Made and Natural Curves
In this week’s photo challenge, Cheri asks for curves suggesting we might find them in architecture, bends in nature or man-made undulations.
I immediately thought of a recent visit to Chihuly’s Garden And Glass Museum in Seattle, where a cornucopia of curves can be found, not just in the sinuous art glass, but in the garden design and plant choices too.
Weekly photo challenge: Face
Garden Companions: Pelican and Alligator
I saw these two friends in a garden in New Orleans. They look like they’ve been sitting side by side at ease (or on guard) in a shady, green corner for quite some time. Continue reading
Garden Art: Stone Head in Topiary
A witty placement of a veiled stone head at Gresgarth Hall Gardens in NW England. She’s ‘clothed’ in box topiary that has been trimmed into a cube.
She’s positioned near the door so it’s easy to imagine her as a kind of guardian angel.
Garden Art: David Harber’s ‘The Mantle’
I caught a bit of stick about the rusty found art I shared earlier this week, so I thought I’d go to the other extreme: a verdigris bronze sphere I’ve seen and admired at shows and exhibitions that is embellished with gold leaf. As it says on the artist David Harber’s website:
…the gold leaf constantly shimmers and glows, flooding the centre of the piece with light – soft and subtle light when the sky is overcast; bright and intense when the sun’s rays hit the piece.
Art in the Garden: Connected
How often do we sense a connection between two people but can’t tell what it might be?
Most of these figures don’t seem connected at all, though they are joined at the base of this sculpture. The lady in the background is staring into space: remote, self-contained, she’s oblivious of the others around her. But the man and the woman in the foreground… now there’s the connection I thought of when I saw this week’s challenge. There’s something that intrigues me in the way their eyes seem fixed together – perhaps they don’t really want to attend to each other quite so closely as they seem compelled to? Continue reading
Art in the garden: wooden head
It’s hard to explain why one particular work of art immediately appeals to you, while another doesn’t. It’s often an instinctive, love-at-first-sight for me – something that defies reason. Continue reading
Weekly photo challenge: serenity
I discovered this serene sculpted head, titled ‘Ariel’, near the steps at the end of the famous red border at Hidcote Gardens. But for the Weekly Photo Challenge, I’m sure it would never have seen the light of day. The succulent looks a little like a flower. Continue reading
