Garden Studies
GARDEN STUDIES. The artwork in this series is shown here in cronological order work. This series is a work in progress. A short time ago my wife and I bought a house. The former owner was an elderly woman who was a master gardner. Everyday I see plants in our small backyard that I've never seen before...not your typical garden plants, or even ones I see at large garden centers when my wife needs something from those places, or plants we see hiking in parks in rural areas of nothern Ohio. Seeing those plants grow and the insect life, and dealing with various garden tasks pruning, weeds, animals, etc., all become an interestiong visual mix, a microcosm, and opportunity for learning in a broader sence . “When you paint Spring, do not paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots, but just paint Spring. To paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots is to paint willows, plums, peaches, or apricots - it is not yet painting Spring.” - Japanese Zen Master Dogen (1200 – 1253)
"... At any given moment we are aware of, maybe at most, 3 or 4 things at a time. Everything else is just filled in as a blur. We can choose to select and focus on any one thing at a time, and somehow we sew together all these glances and bits we pick up at any moment into this impression of a whole..." - Kia Nobre ( Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of Oxford )
"The garden, like all things, is not unchanging. but what significant changes do occur, occur not within the garden, but in the mind of the viewer and in his perception of the garden." - from Stone Garden by Will Peterson
