dabe-art

creative planning

Tuesday, 26 January 2010 15:11 magda

28 DAYS OUTDOOR ART SPACE

AND A VERY CREATIVE NURSERY

Does anybody knows of Little Sparta an artistic garden made by Ian Hamilton Finlay. It is a perfect example of an artistic garden not just because it is made by an artists but because he just did it against all odds.

Finlay had lots of little battles on the road of creating his wonderful garden this is why he called it Little Sparta first it was called stoney path which reflects the work better. His garden and the name has been in my mind lately as we as well have or little battle. Do not worry we will not get wounded we will survive and move on.

We are now forced into a planning procedure for a garden that was build around 1800, long before planning regulations were thought about. Somewhere down the line it got the planning consent of a nursery with "farm-gate selling"; for anything else they say we need planning permission - for running an open air gallery behind walls - without electricity, toilet etc. The price of this will be over £1,000 without a guarantee of getting permission. They even want an application for the pond - that is already there. Graciously not for the path - already a year in use also.

Our budget is too small for adventures like that; so we have to go for a "nursery" which we would be partly anyway as we grow many of the plants ourselves for in the pots and garden art. We are a "creative nursery" where you can buy plants in very interesting pots and very "creative" plants. So what to do?

The planning regulation allows you a usage of your land for 28 days a year for a different purpose. 28 days are 672 hours a year. With a bit of creative time-bookkeeping: 672 hours divided to 6 opening hours a day is - voila - 112 days or 3.6 month that we can be open as an open air art space as well as a creative nursery.

So tell me, when we do artistic tricks with the trees and let them grow in different ways: do we need planning for this? Can the Park Authority say how we should grow plants and in which pots we should sell them, before we can call our-self a nursery?

Does this not remind you on the complain of who can call themselves an artist? An other little war with another little authority (kings of the rock), art colleges, art critics, galleries, and even other artists and, well, the audience as well.

A garden can only be a piece of art when made by an artist, really??? Anything can become a piece of art if made by a creative mind and anybody can have a creative mind. Now you are very free to not liking it but does that make it a lesser piece of art? "If you celebrate it, it is art. If you don't, it isn't" said John Cage. We agree and celebrate.

A gardener is not automatically an artist and an artist is not a gardener but still we see many amazing gardens which are sure pieces of art.

what is a garden

Saturday, 19 December 2009 20:38 magda

It is all very nice to state that you want to make the garden into a piece of art BUT what is a garden and what is art ????

There are many many books written about this but i chose to look in the Oxford dictionary:

"A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form is known as a residential garden.

art the expression of creative skill in a visual form

OK than i asked "What is creative?"

creative involving the use of the imagination or original ideas in order to create something.

The two key words in here are planned and creative/imagination. How can you plan imagination and how can imagination become a plan. The good example of an garden as a piece of art is Derek Jarmans garden at Prospect Cottages, Dungeness.

He started the garden without having much knowledge of gardening it came from his imagination he did not have a written plan nor design. He started and learned about plants on his way, he was trying out things combining materials, collecting and planting. When you look at the garden you see no borders you see no boundaries but you see a collage of material that somehow connect together. In 1997 i came along a book of Derek Jarmans garden in the library while doing research into walled gardens, it changed the way how i looked at gardening and gardens overall. As the walled garden at llanunwas was just a field of grass with a few shrubs on the edges a blank canvas which could be changed to its old glory or made into something new. It became something new inspired by the book a new glory.

Whenever you open a garden magazine it talks about design and planning and not much about imagination or creativity. Most people will not see a garden as a piece of art but more as a piece of outdoor space where you can display art. From time to time you see new garden-design where the designer uses creative the space and material but they will never state that the garden is a piece of art. For me many gardens or parts of gardens are pieces of art, where somebody been busy in a creative way.

When you paint a front-door you can give it a colour or you can use some imagination and make it in a piece of art by painting an image on it. A garden you can plant it and use it as storage or you can make it into something creative by moving away from the standard use of space and plants even the wash-line and the garden-shed can become pieces of art.

Derek Jarman did not start his garden as a piece of art it became a piece of art because he did let his imagination rule not a plan or design. When we approach the garden with our imagination instead of a plan and design it can become a piece of art. This winter i use to write down ideas but stay away from gardening magazines or a design with an attached plan. I will use the winter to go into the garden and look around and let it happen doing some dreaming instead of thinking.

HAVE A GREAT WINTER SOLSTICE

MAGDA

sculptural trees

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 16:57 magda

SCULPTURAL TREES

In nature you see lots of sculptural trees, made by the wind, water, animals or a combination of them. They are my big inspiration and i think for centuries they have inspired other artist and gardeners all in their own way.

Graham Sutherland was inspired by the amazing trees at the Cleddau river, their roots and their shapes. He collected the rocks that lay around the roots showing a different sculpture. The rocks look like they have segments carved out like cubism done by nature. Graham paintings are his perception of the river edge trees and rocks.

The Cleddau river trees are my inspiration to make sculptural trees.

To create a sculpture with a living tree ask patience and time, most of all it will never be finished. Some of the Japanese gardens have trees that have been sculptured by several generation of gardeners. A gardener goes to these trees and continue what somebody started several hundred years ago.

That tree is not like a painting from Rembrant van Rijn, the same today as when he did paint it, but very different from year to year. It is a constant changing piece of art made by several artist.

When i think about it i do not know who will finish the sculpture the tree or me or even an other artist/gardener. It depends who will die first but till that time we do work together in an odd sort of way.

Flag the sycamore is a real challenge if the branches that i bend over into the ground on which the tree grows now did not make any roots, the sculpture will not hold. One day the branches will become sticks and break or rot away and the tree will bounce up and will start to grow horizontal backwards. Even i am controlling it i depend on the goodwill of the tree to cooperate with me, otherwise it will become something different than what i intend.

Yep knowledge about trees will help but if the tree do not respond than it fails and become something else.

In the walled garden i make the sculptural trees myself, on the land Vagdavercustis i have left the trees to be sculptured by the wind, water and animals. I do go back, just to look and learn from what nature has done.

During the summer i snapped off little shoots from Flag where i did not want them to be. In nature the deer would snap the young shoots and eat them. on Vagdavercustis it is most likely that a late storm whither the young shoots.

The difference is that nature has no intention to make it into something, while i want them to grow on a certain spot and in a certain way. Flag has 2 small trees growing on her lap on the bent of the branches and nowhere else.

The dear only snap them young shoots she can reach and leave the rest unless she gets frighten by a certain appearing of a wolf or a human with a shotgun.

The rookery walled garden

Sunday, 28 June 2009 19:41 magda

THE ROOKERY WALLED GARDEN

The making of an garden as a piece of art leaving behind the principle of garden design the art not being an object but being a piece of cultivated nature. In this piece of cultivate nature you can become inspired to make art, to paint, to write a poem, to sculpture, to dance, to sing and than you meet.

The frustration for me was high and at times is high, not being able to do what i want to do, not being able how much the word disabled got a meaning i didn't want to know. So i Started something new. On my walks along the river-edge nice and flat i had to stop a 100 times which made me see the strength of trees. Disabled trees twisted and turned fallen and raised I saw their roots bare of soil holding onto rocks BUT they are alive and growing and shaping themselves against all odds for new life they just kept on going on and they gave/give me courage to keep on going on. The next step was a book about Japanese gardens the twisting turning of trees by human hands and how the trees kept on growing like living sculptures. I started to play with the idea more and more keeping my eyes open for them odd trees them shaped plants topiary Niwaki but also the natural one cork screw hazel or the pollard one the knotwilg (pollarded willow) their beauty their strength. In the garden i started to experiment with the self seeded sycamores and ashes bending them wrapping them shaping them.

FLAG 2009

working with the strength of trees

The pond was made around the plants so no plants had to go for the pond creating a lovely organic shape. The shape made it harder to make but made the result so perfect. THE POND digging soil, moving soil, clearing rocks and stones, patching holes, under-liner, pond-liner, water, waiting, planting waiting, wild life and the feeling o f wOOOw it was worth it!!!

POND MAKING APRIL MAY JUNE 2009

by berthold with the help of friends

BURNED

made march 2009

I made burned in reflection of what was happening on that moment in the garden. The burning, clearing, the survival of plants amongst it for more than a year left in their pots. So i made BURNED from the ashes with some of the survivals into the bare soil. Land-Art in the garden made in a cultivated landscape about that landscape and how i experienced it on that moment to grow for many more moments to come. Next to this garden area where now the shed is was my Tipi.

in the shadow of the moonlight you appeared

full serenity waking the sleeping

performing a dance of reflections

showing the strength of light

waiting for the eyes to turn

With the clearing came also the creating the bigger jobs of the making of a path, the making of the pond, the making of a podium

When we came back into the walled garden in January 2009 it looked spooky with the cobwebs made by bindweed.

OVERGROWN

January 2009

With the camera and the memory where things used to be we explored the garden and draw up a design. We measured every plant which survived and made the plan around these plants. We spoke with the owners Rob and Lia Davies about their ideas and together we draw up a plan and a budget.

Berthold started in February with the clearing of the garden while mAgdA was still recovering, she just kept a close eye that none of her pressures plants where damaged. In the end of February many trees were pollard so they would become more sculptural and stop them from becoming much to big for the garden.

CLEARING

February 2009

The weather was giving a helping hand and many fires were used to burn all the dried weeds, the ash was used in the garden. The plants started to reappear from under the miles of bindweed. The plan had to be adjusted to give a place to as many plants as possible and in the end only a few plants had to give way to the pond and path mainly Comfrey.

In March the planting of the orchard took place. It was late in the season and to get the old variety of fruit trees was hard, but thanks to Thy Rhos in Newport we managed to get a nice selection of fruit trees. There are 2 plums, 2 cherry, 2 crab-apple and 7 apple trees in the orchard..

THE BEGINNING

TIPI

the Pumpkin Shed September 2002

mAgdA from dAbE-Art managed the walled garden Llannunwas Solva from 1997 / 2002, the garden was called THE PUMPKIN SHED organic walled garden. She started with an empty garden and made it into a flourishing kitchen garden with herbs, vegetables, soft-fruits and flowers. A part of the garden was made into a school garden for the Solva primary school. The back of the garden was set aside for wild-life to create a natural balance within the garden. Art was a part of the garden from here mAgdA moved more and more towards Land-Art.

vagda002b

Monday, 03 November 2008 17:43 administrator

mild transgression - work in progress