Garden Sculpture
I’m so happy! …because… for ages I have wanted to fill my garden with my own quirky, idiosyncratic sculptures, and now I’ve begun.
Garden art: I like the weird and crazy kind of gardens of psyche where artist + materials + location together create very curious and idiosyncratic forms.
I’ve been inspired by what to me seems as “crazy, weird, obsessive, ever-growing” landscape installations, where the sculptors seem to be totally absorbed in their collaboration with the place and the materials at hand.
I love to visit these places. You wander and wonder your way around someone else’s psyche, it seems, as if an underground river has bubbled up to the surface.
Some amazing, inspiring examples:
Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens
Pearl Fryar’s Topiary Garden
Noah Purifoy’s Desert Art Museum
My Place (Ok, just getting started—give me a minute!)
Some constructions in my garden:
I’ve made a few mobiles from fallen branches and other sort of fragile constructions that I’ve tucked in here and there, along with tiny prayer flags and a fairy pavilion.
My recent discovery of a concrete product called Pal Tiya has opened up possibilities for making larger, more durable pieces. It’s pretty cool because you can sculpt it like clay, but you don’t need to fire it. After a week of curing, it becomes extremely strong and durable, and ready for the weather.
My first project was to reconstruct this beautiful birdbath, the bowl of which had broken into 4 large pieces and many crumbs. (Unfortunately, I forget to take a before pic-doh!) I glued the big pieces together with liquid nails. My husband helped me to put tension on it with a belt around the edge. After giving it a day or two to cure, I filled in the cracks, top and bottom with the Pal Tiya mixture. Gave it a week of curing, then stained the surface with a blend of a few colors of india ink. I sealed it with Pond Shield, which the internet assured me would be bird-safe (the original wasn’t, by the way, with its chipping, flaking glazed concrete). I think it’s looking great, and it holds water!
Since then I’ve been experimenting with rough organic forms built onto cardboard and foil armatures—getting to know the medium, building my skills, and seeing what it can do. I think it can do just about anything! It’s so exciting!
More to come…
A quirky little house for someone:
A larger vessel:
“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
