Garden Project 5 (2017)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I began creating ‘garden projects’ in my yard in the year 1999, I had a desire  to distance myself  to create my own working and exhibition space,

integrated within my yard and to make art from only the site and its materials.  

 

I exhibited the first garden project (of what was to become a series) fifteen years ago, in 2002. For that work, I spread out pruned branches and dried leaves on the ground and  created a woven carpet that covered the earth. I made balls from twigs and fallen leaves. I knotted and wrapped them with thread and tied bundles from stripped branches. The balls and bundles were placed on the ground; birds, cats, the wind, all came along to play with them; time wore them down, the natural materials disintegrated and eventually returned to the earth.

 

IN 2005 I exhibited the second work of the series. For this project, I built a maze from the garden materials and through it I interwove threads, knitted scraps, parts of toys and a variety of other available materials – creating a tribal sensibility. Wisteria grew and covered the maze, creating a live canopy.

 

Three years later, in 2008 for the third garden project, I recycled the materials from the maze, compressing and reducing them to figure-like forms which I wrapped in fabric and threads. They stood like sentinels in the front yard. In the back yard a cupola-like structure made from oversized knitted faces stretched over wire covered the whole area and was viewed against the background of the sky.

 

In 2012 for Garden Project #4, I knitted coverings for large balls of assorted sizes. These were attached to each other by plastic hoses, winding through the garden, sometimes partially hidden by the foliage. From thick and thin slices of tree trunks I made objects, and on the fences that surround the house I created  “coloring book” from bold colored wool.

 

In the present exhibition, the fifth in the series, the garden becomes one large unified  work, consisting of braided and interwoven twigs and branches. As these move through the yard, they support each other and gather force. The work is entangled, chaotic, twisting and turning like a Van Gogh whirlwind passing through the yard. I have returned here to exclusively using the materials of the garden. The coloring is that of the first garden project, green and earthy brown, but this time it is full of movement and flow, not simply resting on the ground. Once again I have come back to my metaphoric ‘back yard’, and the basic materials offered up by my natural surroundings. I am seeking simplicity, a place where I can extract myself from the race and the competition, where I can create at my own tempo and stir up my own tempest.