Monday, March 28, 2011

What We Hide, What We Reveal


As a photographer, I know that I can control the ‘depth of field’ of a photo by adjusting the size opening of the shutter (F-stop). In everyday terms, I can make the camera near-sighted, almost near-sighted or I can give the camera perfect vision where everything will be in focus. But even in the most perfectly focused photograph, detail will be lost when the grain of the film can’t keep up with the impression made by the light coming through the lens. If you get close enough to a photo, let’s say with a microscope, all you see are fuzzy strands of photographic paper.
In landscape design we can control how much of the garden is visible in one ‘take’. Do we lay out the beds so that the pattern and color can be taken in with one glance? Do we conceal elements of the garden behind a screen of lace-like foliage that puts the farther garden into fuzzy focus? Do we build walls or fences that entirely conceal parts of the garden creating an album-like effect, a page-turner?
These choices are the ways that you determine the speed at which your garden can be absorbed and appreciated.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

I Digress

A two week visit to Italy will temporarily interrupt the previous writings so that I can share inspiration as it happens.


I have always  been awoken by gardens that aren't gardens, just way that people adorn their lives with flora.

In Ravello, Italy terrace gardens are the rule and every available space serves double purpose. A trellis that will shade in summer covers a walkway and also bears fruit.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

More on Metaphor


The arrangement of plants and objects in the landscape can be metaphoric. A metaphor: that is when something IS the representation of the intended meaning, such as “that tree is my grandfather”.  If that tree was “like” my grandfather, we’d have a simile; enough of English 101.
Deciding to use an object as a metaphor relieves the landscape designer of finding a literal representation. Literal representations, such as garden gnomes, fairies, angels, or Venus’, attach the viewer too securely to one meaning.
Rocks, shrubs, trees (dead or alive) that suggest mythic forms create a stronger and broader effect on the viewer.  A shadowed doorway into a dark woodland cannot avoid suggesting a journey into the subconscious.  This is clearly a different effect than the loud direct message sent by the entrance to the carnival fun-house.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Metaphor


The Symbolic Power of Objects
We instinctively know that when we see a single standing stone, it marks something (or so we believe).  Two posts create a gateway, three a family, four a room, five a counsel and many, well many are likely to be grouped in subgroups of one, two, three, and four.
If we contemplate the one stone, we sense authority and before long a paternal or maternal impression of the stone creeps into our heads.  The two stones or posts appear to be guarding an entrance and we approach knowing that we may have to ask permission to pass.  Three (let’s say of varying sizes) gets us identifying father, mother, and child.  And four, depending on their placement will present an organized entity whether they enclose a space or provoke you to ask (as you would a panel of judges, sages, or grandparents), “what do you want?”
We do not need to work hard to perceive the symbolic nature of objects; their meaning will jump out at us if we let it.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Cultivating Visual Instincts

We are born with certain visual instincts: The desire to have our backs protected, the awe that a limitless vista inspires.
Other visual instincts we must cultivate. This means that the seeds of that knowledge are part of us but that we don’t regularly pay attention to them.
Composition is one of those instincts. As we wander around the visual world certain compositions of objects catch our attention. We may stop for a moment or say, ‘how pretty’. Over time we may have done this ten thousand times. But, when we come to a situation for which we need to compose a pleasing arrangement, we get stuck.
If we cultivate those instincts, each time we come upon a beautiful composition, whether it is an arrangement of flowers, a landscape, or someone’s living room furniture, we might take some time to analyze why it works.
Truly, this will not diminish our enjoyment. We may even find that we are seeing pleasing compositions in unlikely places: peeling wallpaper, a dilapidated building, a pile of laundry.
This knowledge, brought to the usable surface will serve us when we design spaces in our landscape.