Sunday, February 27, 2005

Garden Art and Patron Saints

I've been thinking a little about garden art. What started me was finding this quilter who is also making tentative steps into garden art in her Californian garden - and there are a couple of nice pictures there of her garden.

I'm really not the sort to have heaps of concrete ornaments in my garden, although I do admit to sharing it with just a few concrete dragons and gargoyles. But I try and avoid the mass-produced if I can. I would love, for example, to have the money (and available potter/sculptor) to commission a small statue of St Phoecreas, the Patron Saint of Gardeners - not that I am into patron saints in other areas. I have a nice shady little grotto ready for him, under the cumquat tree with the aloe vera.

Strange that none of those who mass-produce garden ornaments have come up with one - a little monk in a big, shady hat, with a rake and other garden tools and a basket of seeds, with a bird on his shoulder?

Then I went off looking on the net. I have to admit THESE by Richard Bergquist caught my eye. Seems like it is not simple to just name one saint (or even spell him!). There is even a Patron Saint there for finding lost garden tools! And one just for the vegetable garden.

But I digress.

I also wouldn't mind having the odd quirky, original piece discreetly hidden here and there, for people to find. But it hasn't happened, yet. The same with my idea of having a rather crazy scarecrow in the Kitchen Garden. Not for ever, but just for a while as some transient art.

What I may end up with though, somewhere, is a small installation I saw in one garden I was looking at locally a few years ago. This was small, flat, round stones stacked in a pile from largest to smallest. Very beautiful. And there is that creek just down the road that is full of them, just waiting to be looked over for a selection to be made.

Maybe a little temple-like pile somewhere near the Wandering Jew, under the treeferns?

3 Comments:

Blogger Alice said...

Oh, send me San Antonio de Padna, pleeeease. He could do the rounds of the gardens every evening and collect all the tools that I put down 'just for a minute' as I'm sure I'll be coming back. My father used to say that he could never start work on the farm until lunchtime on Monday because he had spent the morning looking for all the tools that the children had used and lost over the weekend. But I have no-one to blame but myself as my husband is most careful about putting them away after use.

We are looking for a 'little person' to place in the garden but don't want the usual run-of-the-mill selection. Although, if you could view just one piece in the actual garden, it may look quite different and totally right.

Lovely to have you back, Chloe.

8:00 AM  
Blogger Linda said...

Maybe the real need is for a tiny San Antonio medallion to attach to my secateurs? First I composted my Felcos that I had had for years and years and years. They had great sentimental attachment. Then it was pair of grey ones that were only slightly less expensive.

I now have another pair of Felcos. I live in dread of composting them. :(

8:57 AM  
Blogger Calidore said...

Put in a bulk order for San Antonio please. My secateurs are bright red, really expensive ones that DH bought for my birthday and I keep loosing them. They need a siren on them that starts blaring the minute I put them down, until I pick them up again. Nice to have you back Chloe.

12:13 PM  

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