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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…

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…

April 1, 2016 (1 of 1)

Plus ça change…

This winter feels interminable. Surely in earlier years daffodils have been blooming by now, snowdrops long gone. Well, no. It’s true that in some years snowdrops have appeared by this date.     Crocus have bloomed.     Pulmonaria have added their touch of colour.     But it is also true that this April…

The Abenaki were the original inhabitants of the Eastern Townships of Quebec. This part of my installation, Abenaki Walking, shows the period after the arrival of Europeans, when barbed wire impeded the movement of Abenaki across the land.

Listening to Winter

On a winter day when temperatures throughout Mid and Eastern North America are plummetting, it is difficult not to project human emotions onto the landscape.  How can winter be so cruel and miserable? A poem by the American poet Wallace Stevens suggests we should think more objectively about what we see outside our door. The Snow…