Helen Miranda Wilson

Copyright Helen Miranda Wilson. No usage without permission.

Pilgrim

12 x 9", oil paint on panel, 2010
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HELEN MIRANDA WILSON

Lori Bookstein Fine Art, 138 Tenth Avenue, NY, NY

February 17 - March 20, 2010
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What a relief to walk into a gallery and focus on a single painting.   Helen Miranda Wilson's paintings have always been small, intimate and require your attention.
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The current show at Lori Bookstein Fine Art doesn't disappoint.   Mondrain, Bridget Riley and Paul Klee, all come to mind, but what distinguishes Wilson's paintings is her touch.  I love the feeling for paint.  Those little squares are not hard-edged.  They kind of run into each other.  The tension between one color and the next color sing.
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After leaving art school, Helen and I shared a studio.  Helen has been painting ever since and I have gone on to do other things.  Those of us who have been following Helen's career, never expected her to move from figurative to abstract paintings.  But that's the thing.  Helen always surprises you.

 

Rules For Life In The Garden

Dr. Richard Lighty

Gardening On Earth

A Half Century of Respect for the Land

MetroHort

Wednesday 10, 2010

After more than a century of gardening, Dr. Richard Lighty has something to say.  Until 4 years ago, he gardened on a piece of property, Springwood (7 acres) for more than 40 years.  He now lives in the Adirondacks on 5 acres, where "...we do little except to prune a branch here and there to keep trails and views open.

In the one acre around Bankhouse, we have planted the same species mix that existed before we inserted the house.  Routinely we do nothing more than slowly eliminate those weedy volunteers that naturally come into disturbed areas, and direct the development of the desirable natural vegetation that we introduced, or which came in of its own."

When I think about leaving the garden that I have made, I develop a migraine.  It's an impossible thought.  So how did Richard Lighty do it with such aplomb?

Rules For A Life In The Garden:

1.  Develop a weed strategy.  To control weeds control the seed bank. 
     Otherwise you won't every win the war.

2.  To be a happy gardener create a progression of bloom.

3.  Appreciate the course of life.

4.  It has to do with JOY.  Gardening is not work, if it gives you pleasure.

5.  Decide what kind of garden you need, not what kind of garden you want.

"People ask me wasn't it hard to leave a garden we had worked on for half a century.  

No, we had the process."

Dr. Richard Lighty retirerd in 1998 as the founding director of Mt. Cuba Center for the Study of Piedmont Flora in Greenville, DE.  In 1960, he established and directed the research programs of Longwood Gardens, and in 1967 he founded the Longwood Graduate Program in Public Garden Administration at the University of Delaware.  In the course of his notable career, Dick has named and introduced more than thirty species and cultivars new to American horticulture and explored for plants in Korea, Japan, Central America, Nigeria, and the eastern North American Piedmont.  Currently, he serves on several boards, including The Garden Conservancy, Longwood Gardens, Stonecrop Gardens, and the University of Delaware Botanical Garden.

The Darkest Red

 Images from:  www.maryspantfarm.com and rare FIND nursery

I am watching the snow melt and the hammamelis bloom. On Wednesday, February 24th, Scott Canning, Director of Horticulture at Wave Hill (http://www.wavehill.org) brought a vase of Hammamelis to the lecture (see post:  Is Horticulture Over?).  Scott had a couple of different varieties, but the one that I thought was outstanding is 'Birgit".

Here is the description from Rare FIND Nursery:
Hammamelis 'Birgit'
"The darkest-red flowered witch hazel cultivar introduced to date.  'Brigit' has rich purple red flowers produced on a vigorous plant.  Autumn color is butter yellow suffused orange red.  Although not highly scented, 'Birgit' will add a unique touch to your winter landscape.  Plant one today!"

Only in the UK:  Winter open day.  "Don't miss the opportunity this month to visit the garden of award-winning landscape designer Arabella Lennox Boyd at Gresgarth hall in Lancashire.  This elegant garden is opening for....a Hamamelis Day...February 13.

Support rarefind nursery. http://www.rarefindnursery.com

Book of Losers

 Copyright Peter Mauss. Photographs by Peter Mauss.
Ken Smith talks about his new book, Ken Smith: Landscape Architect

with John Beardsley, Director of Garden and Landscape studies at Dumbarton Oaks

The New York Public Library

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Part of The New York Public Library series: Architectural Explorations in books

chandeliers marching down Fifth Avenue, billboard gardens dottiing the roadside,
       elevator shafts filled with plants
                                                             this can only be the work of Ken Smith.

Ken is known as the "bad boy" of landscape architecture.  He challenges our idea of what landscape can be.  And that is why I never miss an opportunity to hear him speak. He throws convention out the window and rethinks ideas we take for granted.  He likes boundaries; so he can figure out a way to break out of them.  As he said Feb. 23rd , "I am a practitioner of critique."

For example, the viewing garden at MoMA is exactly that.  This is a garden that can be seen, but not visited.  It was designed as an artistic construction to hide air conditioning ducts, etc. The garden consists of plastic rocks, recycled tires, glass pebbles, plastic boxwoods; all of which make a camouflage pattern when viewed from above.  As Ken said, " the MoMA project is "artificially artifical..."

His work is always full of whimsy and playfulness.  If you are interested in how to make a chain link fence into a work of art open Ken's book.  The book designed by Michael Beirut of Pentagram Design is extraordinary.  The text is insightful and the photographs illuminate the work.*

Asked what his next book might be, Ken responded, "The Book of Losers."  A compendium of unbuilt projects.  Ken's work is kind of addiction: once you get into it, you just want more and more.

*Many of the photographs in the book were taken by Peter Mauss, my husband and I freely admit to being prejudiced in his direction.

It's The FLOWERS, stupid!

Every year I swear off gong to the Philadelphia Flower Show and every year I find myself buying a ticket.  It's partly optimism and partly fear of missing something.  Most of the time, I am disappointed.  But I have to admit this year was different.  One, I finally got the idea, it's all about the flowers.  It has nothing to do with landscape design or garden design, it's purely a display of flowers.  2010 theme (and there always is a theme)  Passport To The World.  Each exhibit is dedicated to a part of the world...Africa, Brazil, India, New Zealand, etc.  From the pungent smell of jasmine to the knock-me-over hyacinth, on a chilly day you can't beat it!