Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't want a fly on the wall?
Larger-than-life bugs were the most stunning art I saw at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show this year. Made of stained glass and metal, these bugs are incredibly detailed and exquisitely crafted. The artist, Sean Goddard, crafts other objects in glass and metal as well, but he said he's been known as the bug guy for about a dozen years.
If you missed the show, you can visit Goddard's Farmhouse Gallery on Saltspring Island, British Columbia, Canada, where 32 other working studios are also open for summer and fall, as well as selected hours in winter and spring. Saltspring Island is northwest of Washington state's San Juan Island. The studio tour website shows additional work by Goddard as well as the other artists: www.saltspringstudiotour.com.
Once you have a fly on the wall, the next thing you need is eyes in the shrubbery. It's primal. Imagine sitting next to a campfire and looking into the darkness, where you see the reflective tapetum of predators' eyes. At the garden show, the eyes were partly hidden at ground level in rustic rocks in the display garden created by Saunders Designs of San Francisco.
Once I noticed one pair of eyes emerging from a rock, I had to look for more! The effects varied from glittering beady eyes that you could imagine following you around, to goofy fake-eyeball characters. One of them was used as a focal point, spouting water from its mouth into a basin. Stonefox, the Novato-based artist, uses rocks, crystals, concrete pieces, old tools, found objects, and resin to create his rocks with personality.
Another way to look at art in the garden is finding materials that would otherwise be discarded or recycled and creating something beautiful. The multiple-award-winning display garden of JGS Landscape Architecture of Los Osos showed what could be done with discarded culverts from an underground engineering contractor, old gaskets of different sizes and colors from a salvage yard, and rusty metal cut-out panels, also salvaged after the metal shapes were cut out. Round shapes tied the elements together. The wood-fired orange Weltevree Dutchtub from API designs completed the theme.
Different-size culverts were repurposed as planters and for wood storage, and filled with sand for steps. The gaskets were used as design elements, placed under the plants in pleasing patterns as a decorative mulch. Disc blades from old plows were set on pillars and used as planters.
One of the inspirations for the display garden was the realization that the landscape industry is not green because of all the waste and use of plastics. I still put PVC in the ground, Jeffrey Gordon Smith said, referring to polyvinyl chloride irrigation pipes.
Quite Contrary Garden Design had some interesting sculptural elements. The elegant fountain made of copper tubing mimicked the forms of branches. On a more rustic note, the garden gate was made of scrap metal welded together.
© 2011 Tanya Kucak