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<\/a>The Skating Pond was inspired by a painting that hung at my grandparent’s house in Virginia. So where better to start reflecting on the relationship between inspiration and outcome?<\/p><\/div>\n
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When I first began work on the garden at Glen Villa, I had very few ideas of what I wanted to accomplish. I knew I didn\u2019t want a formal garden \u2013 that seemed out of place in a rural setting — so the existing rose garden was turned into lawn. I thought I was aiming\u00a0for a natural landscape. (I now believe such things are fictions.) but what looked natural was vaguely dissatisfying. I wanted more. I wanted to improve on\u00a0nature, to make it more floriferous, prettier. The trouble was, I didn’t know how.<\/p>\n
So\u00a0I began to read \u2013 books, magazines, garden catalogues, anything I could get my hands on. What I read was inspirational. What I saw was even more so. The photo on the front of a garden catalogue inspired the colour combination that became the dragon\u2019s tail.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Sadly, Cruickshanks no longer exists.<\/p><\/div>\n
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The sinuous curves of Fletcher Steele\u2019s rose beds at Naumkeag inspired the shape.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Steele designed the rose garden to be seen by the owner Mabel Choate from her\u00a0bedroom window above.<\/p><\/div>\n
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An article in the Montreal Gazette show-cased a new area at the Montreal Botanical Garden. As soon as I saw it,\u00a0I knew how to use the\u00a0pieces of broken and burnt china I had found exploring the woods.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The living spaces constructed at the Montreal Botanical Garden suggested a way to use the broken china I had discovered, that came from Glen Villa Inn. I particularly liked the rug and the black-draped bed.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Those shards\u00a0became part of the China Terrace, \u00a0a\u00a0re-imagined version of the hotel that burned down in 1909.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The rug under the dining room table is made of shards from the china used at Glen Villa Inn.<\/p><\/div>\n
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I always knew\u00a0that my ideas were inspired by the work of others. \u00a0At first this\u00a0embarrassed me. I felt I was cheating somehow, not being original enough.\u00a0But soon I realized that using other people’s ideas\u00a0wasn’t cheating. It was doing what people have done\u00a0for millenia, taking one\u00a0idea and transforming it into another. Copying didn’t produce a duplicate, it produced something new, something that was my own.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The band of muscari that whips its way across the grass at Glen Villa was inspired by a photograph on the front of a garden catalogue. I later learned that the photo was taken at Keukenhoff. So Cruickshanks’ cover photo was inspired by someone else’s creation, too.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Almost anything can be an inspiration if we open our minds to the possibilities. \u00a0(I rule out muses, however.) Shadows on a sidewalk made me wonder if\u00a0I could incorporate fleeting sensations into a garden setting in a permanent way. ( I haven’t yet figured out how. Something to do with sound might work.) An Australian novel whose name I forget\u00a0inspired me to think about a sign we see in malls or on place maps all over the world. The little red dot that indicates ‘You Are Here’ determined\u00a0the colour and shape of the\u00a0place-making signs that became guides\u00a0for the art installation In Transit\/En Route.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A red dot inspired this sign, along the In Transit path. Instead of telling the viewer where they are, the sign asks questions. Where are you? Are you here?<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Copying other people’s ideas is a long and honourable tradition in garden design — and in many other spheres. The dining table at Villa Lante in Italy was inspired by descriptions of ancient Roman gardens.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Water moves along the length of the dining room table at Villa Lante, cooling drinks as it did in Roman gardens before it.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Did that table in turn inspire a similar one\u00a0at Chanticleer in Pennsylvania?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>