My last blog post, about making history visible and listening to the land, struck a chord. Many readers responded via the Site and Insight web page or commented on Facebook and on the blog itself, saying they were touched by the piece. Several described how experiences in their pasts affected their responses today, both to their own garden…
Making history visible on the land is the concept that guides the projects I undertake at Glen Villa, my landscape and garden in Quebec. Recognizing and honouring what happened on the land before I came onto the scene is my way of hearing the voices of the past. It’s my way of listening to what the land has to…
England has many fine gardens. Houghton Hall in Norfolk is one of the finest, offering a stimulating combination of horticulture, contemporary art and history that is far too much to absorb in a single visit. The most popular part of the garden is the five acre Walled Garden. Divided into contrasting areas, the Walled Garden contains a double-sided…
This final post of 2018, written on the last day of the year, brings the garden at Glen Villa to a close — for now, at least. August is high summer in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Insects make their presence known. NOTE: Thanks to Mark A. for identifying this as a damselfly. …
The meadows and fields at Glen Villa are white with snow in December, but in June and July, they are alive with colour. Closer to the house, colours appear in smaller doses. The Aqueduct is satisfyingly colourful throughout the summer. Animals played their part…
On a surprisingly mild winter’s day — not at all typical for Quebec in December — I’m remembering the garden at Glen Villa as it looked earlier this year. January brought lots of snow. February brought snow and gloomy skies. In March, skies began to brighten. April conformed…
Do Christmas trees qualify as topiary? We never think of them as such but they fit the definition — the Oxford dictionary calls topiary the “art or practice of clipping shrubs or trees into ornamental shapes.” And surely Christmas trees don’t grow naturally into the perfect cones commonly seen but have been pruned and clipped to shape them. As…
For the last eighteen months or more I’ve been working on an art installation that stretches along a 3-4 km trail at Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec. The trail moves in and out of fields and forests, and each environment has its own character. When I started the project, the idea behind it wasn’t entirely clear.…
Paintings on rock made by indigenous people many years ago give us insights into their daily life and the events and objects they valued. (I wrote about rock paintings here.) Monuments and memorials serve a similar purpose. So what do they show about what we value today? Traditionally monuments were erected to great men and generals who led…
Cave paintings on the island of Borneo showing animals and human hands have recently been dated back some 40,000 years, making them the oldest known example of figurative rock art in the world. (Details of the story can be found in various articles, including one here from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.) Think for a moment about how long ago that…