FYI: My name is CABOT

Envisioning
a Great Perfection
A Garden Conservancy
Tribute to FRANK CABOT
 April 30, 2012 - New York Botanical Garden

"It would be heartening if at least one member of each generation came to know and love plants in their infinite variety so that the garden's growing element was perpetually refreshed and reinvigorated by an enthusiast's hand."

A young woman puts change in a public phone booth in London and calls Frank Cabot.  She asks to speak to Mr. CABEAU.  After a brief conversation, he offers her a plane ticket, place to stay and a position as a gardener.  Before hanging up: "FYI, it's CABOT. "
- recounted by Caroline Burgess, Director of Stonecrop

After two hours of tributes, it was clear that Caroline Burgess' story was apocryphal. Frank Cabot's generosity to gardeners was legendary.  He came from a patrician American family, but did not follow the expected path. His life as an investment banker, was overtaken by his passion for plants.

I was lucky to  meet Frank Cabot at his home, Les Quatre Vents (The Four Winds) in La Malbaie, Canada.  I knew who Cabot was:  knew how to pronounce his name:  knew he had founded The Garden Conservancy and given his home, Stonecrop to it,  he had saved the Ruth Bancroft Garden in California: knew he was a passionate plant collector. 

What I didn't know was that Frank Cabot would be on his knees in the garden with trowel in his hand. This was the Frank Cabot everyone remembered.

His son, Colin gave the most personal view of Frank Cabot.  With good humor, Colin gave an example of his father's autocratic nature. Camping trips were de rigeur, but they were not ordinary.  The making of biscuits, drinking of good wine and baking the occasional birthday cake were standard.  

Colin informed us that every family celebration ended with Frank Cabot reciting these verses from Candide.

Let dreamers dream
What worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers,
The fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.

ENSEMBLE (a cappella)
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!
 
Frank Cabot made all our gardens grow.

WAKEFULNESS: Jon Cotner

"In many ways writing is like a city; there is structure and there are rules, but often beauty comes from improvisation within this framework."
Jon Cotner

"Knows his way, stops seeing." 
Korean proverb
"Wake up as much as possible."
Antonio Machado

"Even an ant crawling by makes its mark"
Korean proverb

A WALK WITH JON COTNER
Recreation is a new interactive walk designed by Jon Cotner. 
To celebrate National Landscape Architecture Month as well as the legacy of Frederick Law Olmstead.

For me, a quintessential Sunday afternoon in the Big Apple, usually means a walk.  This Sunday was a "ramble" with Jon Cotner.  We met at the Southeast corner of the Sheep Meadow, introduced ourselves and briefly stretched before beginning our impending adventure.  Jon gave us a brief intro to Olmstead's intentions in creating the park.  Was the park still an escape from the urbanity and work related "ennui?"

In a clear unpretentious way, Jon elaborated on the meaning of ramble:  amble, perambulate, meander, wander, stroll, saunter, promenade and walk. 

"What I have observed in the Sheep Meadow:  kissing, tumbling, sleeping, sitting, biking, eating, talking, hugging, petting, reading, kite flying, sunbathing, talking, yelling, mediating, etc.etc, etc."

We rambled through the Sheep Meadow for 15 minutes observing the expected and unexpected and 
regrouped at the Northwest corner of the Park.  Jon asked what we had observed? 
Claudia "Two girls were pushing each other and I thought perhaps that one was going to hurt the other, but then one of the girls said, "the tree is the jail." 

We picked up the pace and sauntered over to the rollerskating dancers.  Hugh(one of the participants) had taken off his shoes during the walk in the Sheep Meadow and continued to walk barefoot on stone, brick, cobblestone, dirt, asphalt, etc. I thought that it was incredible gutsy and trusting.  His walk became a sensory experience for his feet.  At the end of our journey "I have felt the different temperatures of the all the materials we have walked over".

As a visual person,  I try to be  mindful when I walk or visit any place.  Strolling around Central Park with Jon, listening to his riff, was a little bit like being with Thoreau or Socrates or one of those guys that philosophize about the MEANING of seeing.  Jon's banter was a little more bookish than twitter.  He is a poet.  Comparing the blowing of spring blossoms to a snow storm is definitely the verbiage of a literary mind. 

Our group parted at  Belvedere Castle, a popular look-out point in Central Park.  And as one of the walkers pointed out, when you hear "the weather in Central Park is..." that forecast is coming from Belvedere Castle. 

Over the course of a hour, Jon expanded on  Olmstead as an artist of views and how carefully Olmstead had created all  parts of Central Park with an eye to hiding the street, the buildings, the traffic.  The Park is all about creating a space away from urban life. 

That space is still there, still intact, still a refuge, still a destination on a Sunday afternoon.  It's the STILLness that's hard to find.  I believe that stillness must be found in one's mind.

______________________________________________________________________
Jon does not have a website.  How you find out what is doing I am not sure.  He did tell us he is doing a walk in Battery Park as part of the River to River Festival.  He will also be doing a walk during the summer at Fire Island from dawn to dusk.  Ten Walk/Two Talks is a book Jon wrote with his friend Andy Fitch.  Jon teaches at the Pratt Institute's Creative Writing Program.

Presidential Tree

Red
White
Gray
AMELANCHIER

I don't question much of what I read on Wikipedia.  Googling the tree Amelanchier, which we had just planted on Randall's Island yielded an interesting sentence.

"George Washington planted speciments of Amelanchier on the grounds of his estate." Wikipedia

That peaked my interested. A couple of clicks later:

"George Washington, who was fond of the serviceberry, planted it on the grounds of his Mount Vernon estate."  http://arboretum.washcoll.edu/_amelanchier_laevis.html

That short sentence provided a way in.  Mt. Vernon was my next click.
Next click on GARDENS
A surprise click:  THE GENERAL AND MRS. WASHINGTON'S WISH LIST
Go deeper:  SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR GIFTS

“$10,100 to eradicate exotic invasive plants from the forest edge. Just beyond the Bowling Green gate is a beautiful 12-acre lawn surrounded by forest. Numerous invasive vines have overtaken the natural tree line. The area is in need of substantial removal of vines and invasive exotics, as well as planting of new understory trees, including the flowering trees that Washington loved: dogwoods, redbuds, serviceberries, and sweet bay magnolias. Professional arboricultural support is required.”

Without going to that old-fashioned institution the library, I had to be satisfied with this brief explanation of Washington's affinity for Amelanchier.

For awhile, I was diverted from my initial inquiry, but after a small triumph, I went back to Amelanchier and its common names: Amelanchier or Serviceberry or Juneberry or Shadbush.

Servicebery:  early settlers used the early blooming flowers of Amelanchier for burial services, hence the name.

Shadbush:  Amelanchier comes into bloom at the same time as shad swim upstream to spawn.

Given the current  presidential chocies, I am happy to be in the company of George Washington.

Not Under The Tuscan Sun

PERIPHERAL Visions:
Italian PHOTOGRAHY
in Context
1950's - Present

Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery
Hunter College
1-4 pm Tuesday - Saturday
Until April 28, 2012

When you have gone to as many galleries and museum shows as I have, you think you've seen it all.  Thank God it's not true.  There is always something else to be uncovered.

Fortunately,  there are curators, gallery owners, graduate students, whose mission it is to discover unknown artists. This is the case of the current show at the Hunter College Gallery.  Peripheral Visions brings together 21 Italian photographers, who have looked at the landscape of their own country in non-pastoral way.  It's not the Italy of vacation snaps.  It's the underbelly of Italian cities and the seedy side of the rural environment.

If you are in the neighborhood, wonder into the gallery.  I guarantee you will not be disappointed.  It's not ALL extraordinary, but it's ALL worth looking at.

IN ADDITION
Matthew Pillsbury
City Sages
Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 East 57 St.
Through April 28, 2012

Continue down Lexington Ave, make a right and walk toward Madison.  41 East 57 st., The Fuller Building, an art deco gem that has just been restored. Take the elevator to the 13th. floor.

Matthew Pillsbury uses a large-format camera and long time exposures to create amazing photographs.  If the work at Hunter College is of a landscape unfamiliar to the Italian tourist, Pillsbury's subject matter is the familiar to anyone who lives in NYC:  Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day Parade, Brooklyn Bridge Park Carousel (pictured above), the NY Stock Exchange, Times Square on New Year's Eve, the High Line, etc.  The contrast between the parts of the photo that are in focus and the part that is out of focus challenge our perception of the place. 

Take a stroll to either of one these shows (or both)  and alter your vision of what you think you know.

WANTED DEAD and ALIVE

Simon JENKINS

Chair of the
National Trust
of England, Wales and Northern Ireland

RESURRECTING
the English Country House
Royal Oak Foundation
April 18, 2012 - Gracie Mansion

My playhouse was built in the colonial style.  With pitched roof, mullioned windows and a brass knob. I spent many happy hours imitating the life I thought I would live. 

Simon Jenkins wants us to play house in the 330 structures the National Trust owns. We've all seen that sign "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH."  If Jenkins has anything to say about it, that graphic will change to PLEASE ENTER!  We will be invited to sit, cook, lounge, dance and even play the piano.  A game of billards at Upton House is within your reach.

The dining room at Kingston Lacey

Is this the disneyfication of historic houses?  Jenkins argues that houses are expressions of family dreams, vulnerabilities, marriages, aspirations and careers.  It's the difference between being a participant or a spectator. "We are taking the past and reinterpreting it for the present.  In a recent survey, National Trust members were asked how many times they returned to a great house.  The answer:  seen it once, seen it all.  Jenkins wants people to come back and back again. 

How is he going to accomplish this?  By making these great houses "talk" to us.  Inviting visitors to experience the life owners and servants once lived:  sitting at the dining table, reading the diary of Lady X at her dressing table, playing croquet on the great lawn or hitting a tennis ball with a vintage wood racquet.

Hardwick Hall

This philosophy is controversial, especially in a venerable old institution like the National Trust.  Jenkins says "it's the stick-in-the-muds vs. the progressives."  His vision is a post-twitter prophecy. But I suggest using twitter to accomplish his mission.

Changing things up is my speciality.  I live for reinvention.  I will try to embrace Jenkins ideas.  I see myself at Knole, the inspiration for Virginia's Woolf's novel, Orlando, pruning lemon trees in the orangery.