Hello there Jane and Lance, I too have tremendous admiration for Ian Hamilton Finlay, approaching his work, as he did, in a unique, trans-genre manner. It would take alot to be in his league. I'm so glad to give you delight. As to where I'll put them, I'm afraid they've already been dismantled and returned from whence they came...
Thankyou, James. My interests breach different forms of expression and I often feel pinioned among those who can define themselves singularly. I am not even altogether sure what my identity is, since it is in an ongoing state of evolution.
Nice..as one who has met Finlay and visited LS twice (and would never return now that he is gone) I can say all the smart and clever photographs on his place emit a mere fraction of the soul of the place. It never ceases to amaze me the many 'names' in the UK garden scene who like to play down the garden for various reasons..methinks the southerners (beyond Hadrian Wall) are somewhat miffed it takes the spotlight away from them!
Liisa, the first installation I remember making was when, as a boy, I used my new Derwent pencils not to draw with, but to create colour patterns with the pencils themselves. Thankyou for your generous comment.
William, I can't undersatnd repudiation of Little Sparta, as IHF built it, simply because it was built outside of normal gardening parameters. Awesome is an over-used word, but it applies here.
Faisal, I am enjoying you express your identity. I was at a garden talk today with Fergus Garrett and Marco Polo Stufano and they were talking about how gardening, and I think all art, is a personal expression. Keep it up!
Thanks for that, Michael. Gardening can be highly creative, if not an art form. Certainly self-expression of any sort must needs use whatever is to hand. I enjoy the process enormously, and never know what's going to come up until I begin.
AH gardens as art..its the flavour of the moment and i am totally bored with it! Those who like to package and contain the various creative processes into this or the other methinks are cultural clerks with perhaps no talent..I take that back..we are all talented if we only allow it!
don't know of Finlay but now I do will check him out. Faisal, I appreciate the way you use so many different media for self expression. I also like the way it's gone back to where it came from - like those monks who build beautiful patterns from coloured sand then pour it back into the sea.
Hi Catmint, I've been reflecting how it was in the western world that art became an 'immortalised' product with a monetary value - nothing wrong with that, as such - but that in cultures elsewhere, art has belonged to everyday life, and was more transient...and everyone, not an elite, took part in it, as much as talking or breathing. This dichotomy exists in gardening too.
Thanks, Sihirli. I like to lose track of time and get lost in creativity...I find that much of the 'real' world we rush about in is fairly empty, and I don't want to know about it.
Hi Catmint, I've been reflecting how it was in the western world that art became an 'immortalised' product with a monetary value - nothing wrong with that, as such - but that in cultures elsewhere, art has belonged to everyday life, and was more transient...and everyone, not an elite, took part in it, as much as talking or breathing. This dichotomy exists in gardening too.
You betcha but the 'immortalization' as you put it the product of the product of our times (but has always been around) and as IHF put it 'there is only state funded art'. Ornamental gardens throughout history have there base in the wealthy (elite?) end of town..they tended to own the land. The rest were cogs in the landscape..aboriginal if you like. Which begs the Q..what is art/what is garden etc etc..
Billy, we've begun a New Age: heirachies that served their purpose in their own times, and produced miraculous art and gardens, have been breaking down. Which is why, I feel, we have only begun to grapple with new definitions. No form of human expression will be the same as it was. The past, to me, wasn't futile and terrible, but it isn't the time we live in now. Definitions are never finite, and I'd suggest that fluidity is a key to our current dilemmas.
"and I'd suggest that fluidity is a key to our current dilemmas." You may well be right. I have long struggled with the elitist nature of the 'higher' levels of the garden world. In that in order to engage more fully in (some say too serious) this field (beyond the standard..whatever that is level) one is sucked into the more elitist levels..(make sense?) From my garden point of view i don't wish to be regarded in the 'elite' corp despites its elevation (by others) to loftiness in those quarters. I regard it as an egalitarian landscape which does not kowtow to affected 'classicism' etc or any of the 'power' trappings of 'rare' plant/Tasteful Manorial trinkets etc etc. take this as part one on this complex subject!
Part 2....as you know i have created a 'classical' unorder 'Bunyip Classicism' (the mythical order.) I am however uncomfortable about using the word Bunyip as it is not of our culture but of the Australian Aboriginal and one must respect that. i am yet to settle on a replacement but perhaps 'Antipodean Classicism' is in the running! The classical un-order we never had!
Hello Faisal:
ReplyDeleteWe love these! And wonder where they are to be placed.....
They so remind us of the 'concrete poetry' of Ian Hamilton Finlay, an iconic gardener, we feel, of the C20.
Hello there Jane and Lance,
ReplyDeleteI too have tremendous admiration for Ian Hamilton Finlay, approaching his work, as he did, in a unique, trans-genre manner. It would take alot to be in his league.
I'm so glad to give you delight. As to where I'll put them, I'm afraid they've already been dismantled and returned from whence they came...
I like this.
ReplyDeleteThankyou, James. My interests breach different forms of expression and I often feel pinioned among those who can define themselves singularly. I am not even altogether sure what my identity is, since it is in an ongoing state of evolution.
ReplyDeleteLove your installations.
ReplyDeleteNice..as one who has met Finlay and visited LS twice (and would never return now that he is gone) I can say all the smart and clever photographs on his place emit a mere fraction of the soul of the place. It never ceases to amaze me the many 'names' in the UK garden scene who like to play down the garden for various reasons..methinks the southerners (beyond Hadrian Wall) are somewhat miffed it takes the spotlight away from them!
ReplyDeleteLiisa, the first installation I remember making was when, as a boy, I used my new Derwent pencils not to draw with, but to create colour patterns with the pencils themselves. Thankyou for your generous comment.
ReplyDeleteWilliam, I can't undersatnd repudiation of Little Sparta, as IHF built it, simply because it was built outside of normal gardening parameters. Awesome is an over-used word, but it applies here.
love the ones with the leaes in situ
ReplyDeletegood work
Thanks, John...it's my desktop image now.
ReplyDeleteFaisal,
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying you express your identity. I was at a garden talk today with Fergus Garrett and Marco Polo Stufano and they were talking about how gardening, and I think all art, is a personal expression. Keep it up!
Thanks for that, Michael. Gardening can be highly creative, if not an art form. Certainly self-expression of any sort must needs use whatever is to hand. I enjoy the process enormously, and never know what's going to come up until I begin.
ReplyDeleteAH gardens as art..its the flavour of the moment and i am totally bored with it! Those who like to package and contain the various creative processes into this or the other methinks are cultural clerks with perhaps no talent..I take that back..we are all talented if we only allow it!
ReplyDeletefound you while in a coffe break from working in my garden- lots of weeds here.... these are some beautiful creations : )
ReplyDeletedon't know of Finlay but now I do will check him out. Faisal, I appreciate the way you use so many different media for self expression. I also like the way it's gone back to where it came from - like those monks who build beautiful patterns from coloured sand then pour it back into the sea.
ReplyDeleteI like these!.. You're really very creative Faisal.
ReplyDeleteHi Catmint, I've been reflecting how it was in the western world that art became an 'immortalised' product with a monetary value - nothing wrong with that, as such - but that in cultures elsewhere, art has belonged to everyday life, and was more transient...and everyone, not an elite, took part in it, as much as talking or breathing. This dichotomy exists in gardening too.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sihirli. I like to lose track of time and get lost in creativity...I find that much of the 'real' world we rush about in is fairly empty, and I don't want to know about it.
ReplyDeleteHi Catmint, I've been reflecting how it was in the western world that art became an 'immortalised' product with a monetary value - nothing wrong with that, as such - but that in cultures elsewhere, art has belonged to everyday life, and was more transient...and everyone, not an elite, took part in it, as much as talking or breathing. This dichotomy exists in gardening too.
ReplyDeleteYou betcha but the 'immortalization' as you put it the product of the product of our times (but has always been around) and as IHF put it 'there is only state funded art'. Ornamental gardens throughout history have there base in the wealthy (elite?) end of town..they tended to own the land. The rest were cogs in the landscape..aboriginal if you like. Which begs the Q..what is art/what is garden etc etc..
Billy, we've begun a New Age: heirachies that served their purpose in their own times, and produced miraculous art and gardens, have been breaking down. Which is why, I feel, we have only begun to grapple with new definitions. No form of human expression will be the same as it was. The past, to me, wasn't futile and terrible, but it isn't the time we live in now. Definitions are never finite, and I'd suggest that fluidity is a key to our current dilemmas.
ReplyDelete"and I'd suggest that fluidity is a key to our current dilemmas."
ReplyDeleteYou may well be right.
I have long struggled with the elitist nature of the 'higher' levels of the garden world. In that in order to engage more fully in (some say too serious) this field (beyond the standard..whatever that is level) one is sucked into the more elitist levels..(make sense?)
From my garden point of view i don't wish to be regarded in the 'elite' corp despites its elevation (by others) to loftiness in those quarters. I regard it as an egalitarian landscape which does not kowtow to affected 'classicism' etc or any of the 'power' trappings of 'rare' plant/Tasteful Manorial trinkets etc etc. take this as part one on this complex subject!
Part 2....as you know i have created a 'classical' unorder 'Bunyip Classicism' (the mythical order.) I am however uncomfortable about using the word Bunyip as it is not of our culture but of the Australian Aboriginal and one must respect that. i am yet to settle on a replacement but perhaps 'Antipodean Classicism' is in the running! The classical un-order we never had!
ReplyDeletehttp://williammartinswigandiaagardenofthesun.blogspot.com/2011/06/signs-of-times.html
ReplyDelete