untitled (14 of 15)

The Past as Prelude

The great English landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe got it right. What’s past is past. But while it is over and done with, the past can’t be ignored. Instead, Jellicoe said, we should “ponder on the past not as the past but as a pointer to the future.” In troubled political times, this sounds like good advice.  It’s…

untitled (7 of 7)

Continuum, Continued

Over the last few weeks, while the weather was remarkably kind, I’ve continued to work on an extension to Timelines, the trail that explores ideas about memory, history and our relationship to the land. I wrote about the initial work on Continuum in my last blog post, almost a month ago.  Since then, lots has happened. We added a…

This is how the rock looked in 2013, before I started on the trail extension.

Continuum

“There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realization. Ideas must be put to the test. That’s why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas.” Andy Goldsworthy’s words ring true for me. I have more ideas than I can realize, certainly more than I can act on in…

The Forms are one installation on Timelines, the trail at Glen Villa that explores ideas about history, memory and our relationship to the land.

Autumn Leaves

Walking through the woods recently, I passed this installation, called The Forms.     The colours of the plexiglass shapes stood out from the muted tones around them, attracting me like a magnet. Closer, I noticed leaves scattered on top of them, some haphazardly, some artfully arranged.     The contrast in colours atop the orange…

This photo was taken on September

Autumn Colour Brings Joy

The autumn colours seem particularly intense this year at Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Leaves started to turn earlier than usual and the height of the season has almost come and gone. But what a season it has been! It started early, when a small horse chestnut tree (Aesculus pavia) began to…

My photos fail to do justice to this spectacular installation.

Visitors at Glen Villa

Last week was very unusual — after a summer of isolation, living inside a family-only bubble, two groups of visitors came to tour Glen Villa. One group came from NIP Paysage, a landscape architecture firm in Montreal whose name reflects its approach to every project it undertakes. To understand, you need to know that NIP is the…