Arabella has a strong attachment to her gardens and emphasises the importance
of a strong relationship with her clients. Her friendship with this client
is fascinating – they have very different lives but the garden has been the
common thread that has kept the relationship going.

Her first Chelsea Flower Show garden was in 1979, for Harpers Queen with
Michael Balston (for Willie Landels). It was beautiful; it had two Indian
tents and Moghul beehives with the design based around an Indian carpet.
Being Chelsea virgins, they committed the heinous crime of leaving some
plastic pots exposed “and the planting really was not good”, Arabella says.
But Russell Page, the landscape architect, commented, “I don’t often
compliment other designers, but I like this garden.” They won a silver gilt.

Her next Chelsea outing was in 1990, for The Daily Telegraph. The then
editor Max Hastings approached her saying, “Do what you want, I trust you.”
She won gold and has since won five more.

Arabella started working on her 12-acre garden at Gresgarth Hall, in
Lancashire, in 1978. It is, she says, her most important garden as it has
taught her so much. She married Mark, her second husband, in 1974 and they
moved there as he was MP for Morecambe and Lonsdale. At first sight,
Arabella was not enamoured with it. In Italy she had grown up on a hill
looking down on huge vistas and the staggering Italian landscape. Here, the
house was set in the bottom of a valley surrounded by heavy woodland. Mark’s
father referred to it as Wuthering Heights.

While carrying on with her design practice, Arabella set about clearing trees
to expose the undulating sides of the valley, beautifully shaped by natural
landslides many years ago. They enlarged a lake to create a larger mass of
water which bounces light into the site and creates a calm, romantic edge to
the formal steep-terraced part of the garden by the house. Octagons perch on
the edge of the terraces, creating elevated but intimate places to sit
overlooking the dramatic valley.

Walking around her garden, it was, for me, reminiscent of Chelsea press day,
buzzing with fascinated gardeners (it is open to the public 10 days a year)
admiring her trademark herbaceous borders backed by superb yew hedges. The
strong herbaceous players in her immaculate borders now are groups of her
favourite phlox, such as Phlox paniculata ‘Monica Lynden-Bell’, P.
‘Mount Fuji’ (white), P. carolina ‘Miss Linguard’ (white) and
Aconitum x cammarum ‘Bicolor’ with its violet blue and white flowers.

Arabella likes her borders to be two-to-four metres deep, to get a good depth
and mix of plants for colour and drama. These borders started off looking
good in early June with nepeta, geraniums and alliums, but they keep their
momentum going well into early autumn.

There is also a stunning walled vegetable garden and Arabella is planting a
large arboretum. A nursery area and greenhouse are home to plants grown from
seeds she has collected on expeditions to remote parts of the world.

Being a great garden designer requires many skills, not only design and
horticulture, but management and organisational skills. Arabella is
continually checking, scrutinising, adapting. But she still gets a frisson
when a new challenge arrives on her drawing board.

For more information visit Arabella
Lennox-Boyd

‘Designing
Gardens’ by Arabella Lennox-Boyd (Frances Lincoln, RRP £25) is
available to order from Telegraph
Books (0844 871 1514) at £23 + £1.35pp.

Florence Boogaerts’ talent as a landscape designer is nowhere more apparent than at her hillside home in Cos Cob. Her garden has drawn countless visitors on garden tours for many years. With help from her late husband, architect John Boogaerts, she built the bones of the garden from the plentiful supply of stones on the property. Florence Boogaerts then put her planting magic into play.

Boogaerts has visited the world’s gardens in Europe, Asia and beyond, and when she’s not incorporating what she has learned into her clients’ gardens, she’s teaching it in her classes at the New York Botanical Garden. To learn more about her work as a landscape designer, Greenwich Time asked her a few questions.

Q: What initially inspired you (and why) toward landscape design?

A: I grew up in New Orleans, where the heat, humidity and bugs did not inspire me to garden! It was not until I was living in Manhattan, of all places, that I became interested in gardening. Two events occurred. A friend and I took on a section of Central Park and raised money to replant it. It was an exciting experience to make something more attractive that would be appreciated by so many people. At the same time, I planted trees all along our block as a surprise for my husband for his birthday. The press coverage of `Mr. Boogaerts Birthday’ brought me my first job — planting trees for the Lauder Foundation on the Upper East Side.

Q: When did you become a landscape designer?

A: I started work as a landscape designer in 1988. I had studied architecture and art history at Tulane University. When my interest in garden design began, I took classes at the New York Botanical Garden and obtained a certificate in landscape design. In one of my classes on garden history, I realized that I would rather teach the class than take it. Now, I do teach design and history classes there.

Q: Where has most of your work taken you? What are you working on now?

A: I work on residential projects, large and small, in Westchester and Fairfield counties. There have been some that have taken me further afield. One was in St. Maarten, which was a lovely job necessitating a whole new plant palette.

Q: What is the creative process of a landscape designer?

A: The needs of the client come first. Sometimes, people cannot express what they want, therefore it is my job to help them. What do they really want the garden to look like? The site considerations such as shade created by trees, type of soil, terrain and rock outcrops all contribute to the design decisions. And yet each job is different. Is the garden going to look completely natural with native plants? Is it going to be a design statement and will it enhance the architecture?

One creates the structure of the garden first, and then the plants are selected. It is a complicated process as the growth habits of each plant has to be considered. Does it like dry soil or wet, sun or shade? How fast does it grow? What is its ultimate size? Will it live in our climate?

The creative process is a series of decisions with two goals. I want both client and plant to be happy.

Q: What other landscape designers have inspired your work?

A: A collaboration I have admired is that of the architect, Edwin Lutyens, with his strong sense of design and Gertrude Jekyll, a great plants woman and colorist. Their work together is a combination of the strength of carefully crafted stonework and terracing enhanced by the subtleness and joy of carefully chosen plants. Their work has the ease, strength and beauty also seen in a ballerina. The gardens of the Mughal Empire were filled with music, flickering candles, fragrance, food and dance. The designers may be unknown — but the pleasures of these gardens are an inspiration.

Q: If you had to choose three notable gardens or landscapes as your favorites, what would they be?

A: There is much it to admire within three great schools of garden design: the Italian Renaissance, and the Japanese and English gardens. Villa Lante in Bagnaia, Italy is one of my favorites. It must have been a splendid garden for a party. It is all about the symbolism, spaces and the proportions. Katsura in Kyoto, Japan is the most photogenic garden I have visited. It was designed so that every step you take your feet are in the right place and everywhere you look the view is perfected. Hestercombe in England by Luytens and Jekyll, with its splendid design, incorporates the vistas of the English countryside.

Q: What garden or landscape do you have on your horizon to visit?

A: I have returned to Japan four years in a row and plan to go again this fall. Both the stroll gardens and the dry landscapes have been a revelation to me. The refined design that is evident not only in the gardens but also in the presentation of food, in clothing and architecture is endlessly inspiring. Scotland is on my list for next summer and the gardens of Spain would be wonderful to see.

Traveling with gardening friends is one of my greatest pleasures.

On Sept. 15, Florence Boogaerts will lead a Horticultural tour of the late David Wierdsma’s French Farm at 516 Lake Ave. as part of the Greenwich Historical Society’s “Frolic at French Farm” event. For more information, visit www.greenwichhhistory.org or call 203-869-6899.

FORT PIERCE —
While the heat of summer is drawing to a most welcome close, gardeners are beginning to gear up for the coming season of planting. With that in mind, the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 30, noted author Pamela Crawford will present her program: Latest Trends in Container and Garden Designs. Topics will include Easy Container Impact, Creating Personal Spaces, and Create a Living Wall. In addition there will be vendors, refreshments, book discounts and a friendly group of people who love plants.

Whether your interests lie in outdoor landscape or patio planters, you will enjoy this morning. Crawford has carefully researched Florida gardening and offers a respected perspective for our area. You will find that her books are user friendly resources filled with practical information.

Make room in your schedule to join the Garden Club of Ft. Pierce for an informative morning.

Details: 9-11:30 a.m., Wednesday, Oct. 30, at the Glidden Park Center, 911 Parkway Drive (Georgia and 10th Street), Fort Pierce. Admission is $10.

Registration form pdf is available at: http://www.districtx.org/PDF_files/20…

For more information, contact Diane Orme at drorme@comcast.net or 772-595-0663.

By
• LINDSEY TAYLOR

Enlarge Image

Meredith Heuer

THE LATE SHOW | This shot of garden designer Grace Kennedy’s Garrison, N.Y., property—showcasing a border of Monarda ‘Raspberry Wine’ and echinachea—was taken last year at the end of September.

Interactive: Fall Palettes

A color guide to plants that are in flower when the leaves are turning. Ms. Kennedy shares two of her favorite late-season palettes.

View Graphics

Meredith Heuer (2)

Click to view the interactive

“MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE I’m a procrastinator, or maybe it’s because I love the bittersweet quality, the light and the cooler temperatures, but I’ve always embraced the decay and the musky, earthy smells that are synonymous with fall,” said Grace Kennedy, a garden designer based in Garrison, N.Y., who considers autumn the standout season of the year.

Most novice gardeners don’t see it that way. Once Labor Day hits, they resignedly watch their success stories fade and start to say goodbye to the flowers they’ve nurtured. But for Ms. Kennedy, the growing cycle is just beginning then. “Some wonderful plants peak once the hot weather subsides,” she said. She tells her clients with evangelical zeal how alive a fall garden can be if you plan for it—with late-blooming perennials providing color (see interactive), plumes of ornamental grasses swaying in the welcomed breezes and fruit and berries attracting voracious wildlife. In the Northeast, where summers can be oppressive, a fall garden can flourish a good three months before it finally succumbs to the first hard frost.

Ms. Kennedy, whose own spread blooms into late November, typically brings a bucket load of cut flowers—cosmos, zinnias, sunflowers, foxgloves—to her parents for Thanksgiving. Her belief that fall can be a time of floral abundance was shaped, she said, by a book she read early in her career, Rosemary Verey’s “The Garden in Winter,” which argues that “off” seasons are fair game and should be factored into a garden plan.

Some clients have struggled to see things her way, but lately there’s been a shift, she said, and both newer and more established clients are coming to her with ideas on lengthening the season. “There’s a trend toward edibles,” said Ms. Kennedy, “but also an interest in ecosystems. Clients are seeing the garden as an active system that provides and feeds in addition to looking good.” Shrubs like elderberry or beautyberry, for instance, both nourish and shelter birds.

Other professional gardeners have long been playing with plant selections to dramatically extend the longevity of their flora display. William Wallace at Wave Hill, a public garden in New York City, fills its beds with late-blooming salvias, like Salvia leucantha, which starts flowering in late September, and Salvia mexicana ‘Limelight,’ whose blue flowers sprout out of chartreuse bracts. He also likes to weave in asters and garden mums, and has started leaving seed heads on plants through the winter and adding more grasses to the flower beds to give them textural interest and a modern, unstuffy sophistication—a trend that’s catching on elsewhere too.

“Add ornamental grasses to fall flower beds to give them a modern, unstuffy sophistication.”

To extend your own garden into fall, Ms. Kennedy recommends working some late bloomers and ornamental grasses into existing beds or, if space allows, dedicating a whole border to plants that flourish in autumn. When it comes to grasses, she particularly likes Calamagrostis and Carex varieties, as well as little bluestem. Meanwhile, her favorite perennials include Vernonia (ironweed), a tall native plant, riveting to butterflies, that can reach a height of 7 feet when it hits its stride in late August. She shares Mr. Wallace’s love of asters and salvia, along with dahlias and agastache (hummingbird mint), whose seed heads reliably seduce gold finches.

Though many people assume that gardens should be planted in spring, fall is actually a great time to shop for plants and get them in the ground. Nurseries often have sales, and you can see the autumn bloomers at their peak, so you’ll know what you’re getting.

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A version of this article appeared August 31, 2013, on page D4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: It’saFallWorldAfter All.

Atmospheric and ethereal, some images defy references. There are unlikely patchwork montages, graphically arresting, which actually reference a colorful range of intricately patterned silk scarves. Watercolor abstractions in intense hues are spellbinding. Blooms of dahlias evoking more psychedelic than natural colors are explosive. Mega-scale, mural-sized photos are crisp and realistic. Brushstrokes and drips of paint may, in fact, be real.

This is the world of today’s most creative wallpaper design. It’s a modern movement with deep roots in nostalgia, both in history and in imagery.

Technological advances, including ink-jet printing, have opened a new world of scale, color and technique, one that has been happily embraced by artisans, many of whom have been trained in fine arts, graphic design and photography.

In an ongoing effort to push the envelope with unique surface coverings, in recent years we’ve seen an uptick in the use of leather, skin and more unconventional materials such as metal, resin, beads, shells and even Swarovski crystals, which add dimension as well as texture and sheen. One London-based company, Meystyle, even embeds LED lights into its sophisticated patterns.

Pattern certainly has played a pivotal role in dimensional or textural examples. But perhaps the most excitement these days is in the imagery itself — in traditional silk screens, hand-painting, and digital and print technology.

And these days, there is so much more than meets the eye. There’s a mix of sophistication, serendipity and wit at play with the creative process.

The latest collection from Trove, for example, features ethereal looks with names such as Nimbus, which evokes puffy clouds, and Heze, which features abstracted circles. For partners Jee Levin and Randall Buck, the design was a new, experimental adventure. The two created the images by making a series of paintings with flashlights and fiber-optic toys, exposing light to different photographic papers.

“It’s playfully lighthearted,” says Levin, who says the concept was inspired by New York City street fairs. “We started seeing weird, odd toys, like bracelets and wands. We thought, ‘Let’s play with those and use them as an unconventional art tools.’ So we gathered the pieces, brought them into a darkroom, used a variety of photographic papers and exposed light at different speeds. The experiment involved time, light and color. We learned that red does not actually expose light to the paper, and you can see interruptions in the patterning, sort of gestural brushstrokes. Color was the process, not just informing the process.”

Look closely at the patterns in Alyse Solomon’s wall coverings and you may begin to recognize elements. What they resemble may be anything from embroidery to pointillistic art to pixilations. One study of red lilies, composed on a ground of leaves that look as if they have been cut out of paper and set in, takes on a whole different vibe with a shift of color to fuchsia on olive, where you get lost in stylized pattern.

Solomon combines a background in graphic and textile design with photography. “I always create pattern and texture and color through the camera,” she says.

So the artistry has really given a boost to rethinking the wall in interiors.

“People are using wallpaper as a kind of artistic statement,” says Shanan Campanaro, creative director and founder of Eskayel, a company based in Brooklyn, N.Y. “It’s less expensive than a giant piece of art. You can use it as an accent rather than everywhere.”

Posted: Sunday, September 1, 2013 12:00 am

How to design a closet

BY ROSEMARY SADEZ FRIEDMANN
Scripps Howard News Service

Richmond Times-Dispatch

It seems as if we never have enough closet space, and it seems the little space we have in our closets is crammed and unorganized. Let’s see how we can fix that.

Start by removing the clothes from the rods and all the stuff that is on the shelves and floors. Place the items you’ve taken out into groups of similar items, such as slacks in one pile, shirts in another, skirts in another and so on.

Then categorize each group into colors: all the tan tops together, all the blue tops together and so on. While you are sorting through and organizing items, get rid of things you haven’t used in a while. If you can’t part with some things but don’t have a use for them, put them in a box and store them in the attic or someplace other than your closet. You still have your treasures, but they won’t take up space in the closet. Items you can part with should go to charity.

Measure the space available in the closet (length, width, depth). Now estimate how much room you will need for each of the groups of clothing, shoes, bags, etc. Draw a simple template onto paper with the size of the closet. Create “blocks” in the closet template, sort of like building blocks, and figure out what to put where. Tops and shorts can go one over the other on rods. If you don’t mind hanging slacks by draping them over a hanger, then they can also go on a rod under the tops. Blocks for shoes and handbags should be drawn in, too. Include an area for longer-hanging items, such as dresses and, if you prefer, hanging pants the long way. In your drawing, provide a high shelf for hats, luggage or large handbags.

Provide a space on a wall in the closet to hang belts and necklaces. If you have space in the closet for drawers, install them for underwear, PJs, socks and jewelry. If there is no space for drawers in the closet, then store these things in the bedroom in the dresser drawers.

Hooks in the closet serve good purposes. Robes are one example of what the hooks can be used for.

Of course, the size of some closets just won’t meet your needs no matter how much you work at it, but these ideas can help somewhat.

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  D e s e r t   E x p o s u r e  Sept 2013

 

The Wisdom of Gardens

Growing benefits for body, mind and soul.

by Jean Eisenhower

 

 

The space around one’s home can offer life-changing benefits to one’s body, mind and soul (and of course one’s pocketbook, too). Getting all the benefits at once requires a “design mind,” what some have called “pattern literacy,” and the perseverance to work a sometimes-complicated puzzle.

The life-changing benefits are worth it!

 

Benefits to the Body

A good garden design can deflect strong winds. It can shade special areas in summer and warm them in winter. It can direct rainfall to the gardens or into tanks while keeping other places mostly dry, saving work, making one more comfortable. It can even help protect one’s home from fire.

A good design can provide healthy, organic food and natural medicine, more oxygen, and cleaner air.

A good design can make outdoor chores easier, more efficient and more pleasant.

 

 

 

Benefits to Mind

A good design can provide a nurturing place for private reflection, reading, art and visiting with friends and family.

A good design can absorb unpleasant noise, block less-than-lovely views, and accentuate the most pleasing scenery.

 

Benefits to Soul

A good design can provide food and habitat for birds, butterflies and other wildlife whose presence can delight us and remind us of eternal realities.

A good design can help us recycle and in many ways be more responsible with our little piece of Earth and all the resources flowing through our lives.

A good design can encourage us to spend more time with trees and other plants, which philosopher/mystics like Paracelsus, Rudolph Steiner and others have credited with providing valuable spiritual insights to humans through the ages.

A good design can help us learn about other living things and give us tangible feedback on our growing consciousness.

 

Benefits to Pocketbook

A good design can save us money on food, water, medicine and even entertainment: If home is so wonderful, why go anywhere else?

A good design can extend a home’s living space and add significant beauty, both increasing the value of one’s property.

 

The Design

So, how do we create this truly good design? I learned my skills 24 years ago in my training as a Permaculture designer. I define Permaculture as a philosophy, a practice and an ongoing conversation across cultures, bridging indigenous and modern people, sharing techniques and ideas for living sustainably on Earth. It can be applied to small gardens (even patios), neighborhoods, large landscapes needing restoration, communities, and even towns and cities needing rebirth.

The first step is observation, maybe lasting a year or more, humbly setting aside what we think we know and being willing to ask questions: Why have skunks, or deer, chosen to frequent this area? Why do those weeds thrive there? Why do I never use this area?

The second step in my process is to create a map with legal boundaries and constraints, such as easements, fence-height limitations and utility lines (check with the city on all these), buildings (with their heights noted), topography, existing plants and soil types, etc.

The third step is to analyze the elements: What elements (trees, other plants, animals, buildings) exist or are hoped for, what does each element require, and what does each element produce? For instance, a fruit tree needs good soil, water on a certain schedule and to certain depths, nutrition at certain times, pruning, protection from insect predators and poorly timed frosts, and more. It will produce not only fruit, but leaf “litter,” shade, windbreak, wood and more. When a list of needs and products is created for every element, a good designer will plan to have each element’s products supply its own and/or other elements’ needs.

The fourth step is to analyze the energies moving through one’s property: the winds (both prevailing and daily thermals), the sun’s rays (daily and seasonally), water (rain and downspout), cold air flow, noise, wildlife, erosion, etc. These can be plotted on a series of maps.

 

Zones

The fifth step is to analyze the zones of human activity, beginning with the house. The first zone, the house plus the areas nearest the most-used door(s), is where to plan for daily activities like harvesting herbs or tomatoes for a meal, taking out kitchen compost, watching the children play, watering the garden, collecting eggs and feeding the chickens, and maybe taking a path to and from the house and town.

The second zone is for activities performed a little less often: hanging out clothes and taking out trash.

Zone three (these last three usually only on larger lots) might contain fruit orchards, bees and maybe goats; zone four will be for grazing larger animals and planting hardwood trees and other plants with long-term value and little maintenance; and zone five will be left wild for our personal education about things such as plant succession and perhaps some moderate wildcrafting.

Within each zone, a design needs to also consider the elements over time: how tall a tree will grow, what’s to fill the lateral space until the tree reaches maturity, and how various elements might be “stacked,” for instance, ground cover beneath shrubs and vines winding up trees — especially when these can share needs and products.

 

The Puzzle

When the analysis is complete, the puzzle may seem impossible! But the longer I am here on my tiny, one-10th acre of rocky land with a house, small shop, vehicles and a corner with height restrictions, the more I discover I can do!

And it’s important to recognize that the puzzle is ongoing. First, it’s easier and smarter to implement a design in stages, so we can actually live with parts before other parts are envisioned. Second, life changes constantly, so the design will usually change as we live with it. I’ll share two of my design challenges and solutions.

 

 

 

Water

When I moved onto this lot seven years ago, my biggest priority was redirecting roof runoff away from the house and toward where I planned to have gardens.

I didn’t want all this water to flow into the street, as bad design over a century ago has famously turned certain roadways around here into creeks during rainy periods, and I certainly didn’t want to contribute to that. I also wanted to harvest the value — “turning a problem into a resource,” a primary tenet of Permaculture.

Therefore, I created a long swale (a shallow depression with a berm on the downslope side) to move the deluge alongside the one-day gardens to a deep tree basin near the western boundary, then back east, again slightly downgrade, all the way across the property to a garden on the opposite side. Then I graded the rest of the land slightly to flow into this swale or other gardens, so that today not a drop of water flows into the street. Because of this, and because I mulch my gardens thickly, I don’t have to water as often during the summer.

 

Growing on Rock

This property was long ago carved out of a solid granite hillside and has virtually no native soil on it. So my second major project was creating garden beds and holes in which to plant trees — speeding up a process that might otherwise take hundreds of years. Garden terraces were made of dry-stacked stone placed alongside the rock hill about three feet high, and tree holes were picked two feet deep into the granite ground.

Though I initially purchased garden soil and still occasionally purchase it, I’ve been working to be more soil-self-sufficient by making it from my own organic kitchen compost and garden debris, all of which is rich in essential nitrogen and creates excellent soil to grow in.

Over the years, besides food and herb gardens, I’ve planted six trees and three grape vines. In addition, I’ve erected a fence and shade patio, built a grape arbor, installed a few water-harvesting tanks, created a small pond, laid a natural varnish-hardened adobe-concrete patio, installed a water tank for summer dips, and built a chicken coop ready now for new birds!

Next plans include a solar hot-water heater, outdoor shower, eight more fruit trees and another large garden — and we still have enough social space for good-sized summer parties! (Gotta have those priorities in place!)

Today this yard, so desolate before, is where I spend a great deal of my life throughout the year — and not just working! My partner and I sit and read and sing and muse on the beauty for hours almost every day, most seasons, and in special times nearly all day!

 

The Soulful Part

Sitting in my garden amongst trees, flowers, herbs and food, I sometimes waver between bliss and faint fear. I realize the fear is connected to a memory of childhood when I heard the plants and spoke to them and was later told they didn’t have minds, didn’t speak, didn’t listen — but I had been certain that they did.

Today I believe our culture is on the verge of coming to terms with a reality larger than that I was born into in the early 1950s. And this larger reality includes intelligence that resides in all living things — and I believe also in things we call “non-living,” like rocks, or as Indigenous Americans call them, “Stone People.”

Helping modernized Americans along is author Peter Tompkins, whose The Secret Life of Plants was a number-one New York Times bestseller — attesting to Americans’ readiness to expand their world views. Tompkins also wrote The Secret Life of Nature: Living in Harmony with the Hidden World of Nature Spirits from Fairies to Quarks.

Quarks?! There was no marketing gimmick in that title. Nature mystics have been tested by physicists and at least sometimes are found to be able to perfectly describe things like quarks, superstrings, gluons and other structures that scientists measure in fractions of a centimeter, in one case with 35 zeros after the decimal point! And history recounts one mystic who described unknown isotopes before any scientist “discovered” them.

Psychics have also described, consistently throughout the millennia, intelligent beings who somehow inhabit our trees, forests, mountains, rivers and valleys. These have been given various names in different cultures throughout time, such as devas, fairies, elves, gnomes and the like. They usually avoid contact with humans, but occasionally communicate with them.

Whether by devas or our own intelligence, gardens are a wonderful place to learn and develop one’s consciousness. I’ve noticed in recent years that I sometimes have an idea that a plant needs something different from what I am giving it, and if I ignore that idea (maybe feeling too busy), the plant suffers somewhat or dies. That feedback — relatively quick because of the short life of these plants — helps me to remember not to ignore what I hear, so I vow to listen and respect. Now, paying better attention, my garden is doing much better, and I am feeling more conscious and aware. We are both clearly serving each other symbiotically.

The Greek philosopher Paracelsus — and Rudolph Steiner, 400 years later, lecturing in Paracelsus’ own Swiss canton — both described the trees and other plants standing nightly under the stars, receiving messages from the cosmos while we sleep, then passing the information into the earth. And if we put our hands in that soil, perhaps some wisdom comes to us in the process.

Wherever we are on our consciousness path, I’ve come to believe these silent beings — tomato plant, almond tree, comfrey — can bless our souls in more ways than we might suspect.

 

Jean Eisenhower has been designing homes and gardens for 24 years, and now offers workshops, design groups and consulting in garden and passive solar home design through her business, Home and Garden Inspiration, www.homeandgardeninspiration.net.

 

 

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No
one, including herself, would call JJ De Sousa conventional. Her
larger-than-life personality transfers to everything she does, from the
exuberant garden and colorful brick home in Southeast Portland to Digs
Inside Out, the home and garden shop and headquarters for her
design business.

After completing the design course at Portland
Community College nine years ago, De Sousa jumped right in, leaving
behind a boring career in corporate human resources to design interiors
and gardens, a job she finds entirely fulfilling.

“I’m so
lucky,” she says. “I get to be surrounded by beautiful things and
beautiful spaces. I can hardly believe this is my life.”

Much of her design basics are found in her garden:

COLOR

Her
regard for red morphed into an ardor for orange — not a long stretch
— when the color made a deep bow in the marketplace several years ago.
Orange makes neutrals pop, and using it repetitively to unify the space
creates an unself-conscious way for the eye to move through the garden.
“Orange is such an eye-catching color,” De Sousa says, “it just works.”
Dutch to the bone, she mentions it doesn’t hurt that orange is the color
of the royal House of Oranje and the Dutch soccer team Ajax.

LOCAL ART

Much
of the art in the garden is made of salvaged items and by local
artists. “We’ve got such an abundance of local talent, and I want to
support them,” says De Sousa, who not only buys the art for her home,
but carries it in her shop as well.

LOW MAINTENANCE

“I had
a high-maintenance garden,” says De Sousa, “and I got over it.” Once
she bridged that chasm, succulents became her go-to plants. “They’re so
low care, and so architectural. I’ve always liked sharp, prickly
plants.”

ANIMALS

With five cats and two dogs, De Sousa
and her husband, José, have plenty of furry company. Fluff, short for
Marshmallow Fluff, in particular enjoys hanging out. “She’s our
good-will ambassador; she follows people around the garden and talks to
them,” says De Sousa as the white cat with one green and one blue eye
jumps into a nearby chair and starts meowing.

Other fauna
includes an inside joke missed by many: Chicken roosting boxes are
planted with hens and chicks, which also go into zinc tubular chicken
feeders.

METAL

Metal is repeated throughout the garden in
accents and hardscape such as the fence, which gives both a modern and a
rustic feeling. The corrugated sheets were purposely set horizontally
to “give the feeling like you’re moving in one direction.”

ENTERTAINING

Heaters
and fire pits, blankets and durable, year-round furniture allow the De
Sousas to eat, entertain and hang out in their garden from April to
December. The horseshoe sectional is made of recycled polyethylene,
which is naturally anti-microbial to keep mildew at bay. “I haven’t
touched it in five years,” JJ says. She urges people to create spaces
within spaces. “People think of their gardens as one big space instead
of breaking it down into smaller ones,” says the designer. “It’s like
painting a room dark; it makes the walls recede.” It must be, because
her 77-by-127- foot lot is home to six areas that will seat 66 people.

SPONTANEOUS DESIGN

De
Sousa is a hands-on designer, who starts with broad ideas and narrows
them down. Drawings aren’t her way. “I use more of an organic approach,”
she says. “I know I want a water feature or a retaining wall here or
there. Then I work on materials later. But sometimes you find a killer
piece that can throw your design on edge, and the next thing you know,
you’re changing everything.”

 

JJ’S DESIGN TIPS

—
Buy the best you can afford. When it comes to outside furniture and
furnishings, you really do get what you pay for. Durable materials last
for years and so are more sustainable than cheap ones that soon end up
in the landfill.

— Don’t be afraid of color; it can change everything.

— Good lighting is essential and so often overlooked.

— Create spaces within your space. When you break it down into smaller areas, it actually makes it feel and look bigger.

— Make intentional entertaining spaces: places to sit, to lie down and to eat.

— Don’t buy everything new or right now. Take your time and create a garden that reflects who you are and how you live.

RESOURCES

Digs Inside Out, 1829 N.E. Alberta St., 503-460-3447, digs-pdx.com
 
Grand
Marketplace, a new venture of 18 merchants focusing on vintage and
salvage home and garden items, set to open Wednesday; 1005 S.E. Grand
Ave., kitty-corner to Rejuvenation Hardware; 503-208-2580;
grandmarketplacepdx.com. JJ De Sousa has two spaces, one an apothecary
of lotions, soaps and other potions called Apotheek; the other for
smaller home decor pieces called House of Oranje.

What’s the obsession with caramel-leafed heucheras and variegated, well, everything?

“Flowers are fleeting. Foliage is forever – or at least longer,” wrote Karen Chapman and Christina Salwitz, authors of the book “Fine Foliage: Elegant Plant Combinations for Garden and Container,” in an email.

Foliage can stand to go solo or can act as a picture frame for floral favorites.

“In many less sunny climates, if you only rely on flowers, the garden is only showy for a small percentage of the year,” the authors noted. “Where’s the fun in that?”

If you’re interested in creating dynamic perennial gardens, containers and/or mixed borders that don’t require hours of planting flats upon flats of blooming annuals every season, cruise past the racks of short-blooming mums and head toward the back of the garden center where the perennials and shrubs are tucked away. There you’ll find plants with leaves in every color of the rainbow. It’s not just the burgundy, black or multi-colored leaves that deserve your attention, though.

“There’s a big range of colors across the greens,” said Sheri Chisholm, co-owner and designer at Flora Landscapes in Wilmington. “You can find plants in shades of olive, lime green, blues, grays – there’s a lot of contrast just within the color green.”

Design made easy

All of this sounds lovely, but it involves design – a dreaded word for many gardeners. If you’re serious about upping your game in the garden, it helps to find a book that clearly and succinctly explains design in a way that “regular” people can understand and implement. I’m a fan of a practical book, one that you can open to a specific project and have all the information you need to hit the ground running. This is where “Fine Foliage” stands above the rest. (Salwitz dedicated the book “To ‘foliage-a-holics’ everywhere … gardeners who find design inspiration first in the leaf, then in the flower.”)

The highly structured book is divided into three parts. The first is an overview on how to use the book to easily create your own beautiful foliage combinations in the garden. The second and third are two-page spreads of plant combinations for sun or for shade that give detailed information to either a) recreate each combo exactly as shown or b) create similar foliage combos.

The book is 7-by-7 inches, the perfect size to tuck in your purse or under your arm while you shop. Most of the plants mentioned in the book will grow in our area.

Local favorites

Wilmington designer Chisholm places a high priority on foliage in her designs for Flora Landscapes clients.

“I’m just not an annuals girl,” she said.

Her recommendations for high performers in our area: “Kaleidoscope abelia is great because you have the yellow foliage on red stems, and it’s evergreen. It provides tons of visual interest, whether or not it’s flowering.”

Conifers also have lots of variation in color.

“I just designed a conifer garden with ‘Blue Star’ juniper, ‘Golden Mop’ Chamaecyparis and Andora juniper, which turns a bronze color in the winter,” Chisholm said.

She urges us not to forget about trees.

“‘Ruby Falls’ is a weeping redbud with red foliage, while ‘Silver Cloud’ has white foliage,” Chisholm said. “The New Hanover County Arboretum has a spectacular mimosa tree with red foliage. It’s called ‘Summer Chocolate.'”

Beyond color

Chisholm and the authors of “Fine Foliage” note another layer of design – leaf texture.

“Mix fine, medium and coarse textures of foliage,” Chisholm said. “For coarse textured plants I recommend fatsia, elephant ear, hydrangeas, hosta and cast iron plant,” she said. “Fine textured plants include ferns, ornamental grasses, podocarpus, conifers and amsonia. Everything else is lumped into the medium texture group.”

Focusing on foliage will also help you design a garden that stays exciting throughout the year.

“Go for plants that have more than one personality trait. For example, a plant that might have some great foliage color that happens to be evergreen and changes color in winter is a huge advantage,” Chapman and Salwitz wrote. “Blending three distinct textures of foliage will also take you a long way in your quest for long-lasting seasonal interest.”

Rule of threes

“The way you’d design a flower arrangement, that’s the same way you design a landscape” Chisholm said.

That is, you follow the rules of threes: three colors, three heights and three textures.

Chapman and Salwitz recommend testing your combinations in the shopping cart before taking them home.

Features: 343-2343

Ann Arbor public art commission meeting (Aug. 28, 2013): The only major action item for public art commissioners was approval of Joshua Wiener’s design for artwork in a new rain garden at the southeast corner of First Kingsley.

A drawing of Joshua Wiener’s proposed rain garden sculptures at First Kingsley. (Image provided in the AAPAC Aug. 28, 2013 meeting packet.)

His proposal entails creating white metal images of five small mouth bass, in varying sizes, that appear to be emerging from the landscape and pointed toward the Huron River. Two of the sculptures will be large enough to serve as benches.

Because the artist’s contract of $23,380 is less than $25,000, it does not require city council approval. The sculptures would likely be installed during the spring of 2014.

Commissioners also received several updates during the meeting, and reviewed a new spreadsheet designed to track more effectively current and potential projects. [.xls file project tracker] Aaron Seagraves, the city’s public art administrator, reported that a selection panel picked Catherine Widgery of Cambridge, Mass., as the artist for a major public art project on the East Stadium bridges in Ann Arbor. However, the panel is asking Widgery to revise her proposal before presenting it to AAPAC and the city council for approval. The project has a $400,000 total budget.

Other updates covered projects at Argo Cascades, the city’s wastewater treatment plant, Arbor Oaks Park, a memorial for Coleman Jewett at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, and the “Canoe Imagine Art” community project. Additional potential projects were mentioned, including possible artwork for the new bike share program and the public skatepark, which is now under construction at Veterans Memorial Park.

Commissioners also viewed a short video produced by Ashlee Arder, one of the newest members of AAPAC. The intent is to promote the commission and the city’s public art program. The video is already available on YouTube, and Arder plans to post it on the commission’s website, Facebook page and Twitter account, @AAPublicArt.

The meeting was attended by six of the seven commissioners, including Marsha Chamberlin, who participated via conference call. There are two vacancies on the nine-member commission. At the city council’s Aug. 19, 2013 meeting, Devon Akmon was nominated to fill one of the vacancies. Akmon is an Ann Arbor resident and the new director of the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn. At its Sept. 3 meeting, the city council is expected to vote on Akmon’s confirmation to AAPAC .

No name has been put forward publicly for the second vacancy. One of the two vacancies resulted when Tony Derezinski was not reappointed. The other stemmed from Wiltrud Simbuerger’s resignation earlier this year. Her term would have ended Dec. 31, 2013.

First Kingsley Rain Garden

Commissioners were asked to vote on Joshua Wiener‘s schematic design for public art at a planned rain garden, to be located at the southeast corner of First Kingsley. [.pdf of staff memo, including itemized budget]

At AAPAC’s March 27, 2013 meeting, commissioners had selected the Denver artist to work with landscapers and incorporate public art into a new rain garden at that location, which is in a floodplain. The project has a $27,000 budget, though the artist’s contract would be for $23,380.

Wiener visited Ann Arbor on July 15 to present his design to the public. He gave a presentation at city hall, and attended the Townie Party to talk with community members about the project. His proposal is for sculptures showing the outlines of five fish. They’re small mouth bass, in different sizes, made of white epoxy-painted steel and pointed toward the Huron River. The largest sculpture will be just under 8 feet tall, 20 feet wide and about 5 feet deep. Two of the fish will be large enough to serve as benches.

From the artist’s statement:

The significance of water on this site is represented by having fish on the land. They are emerging to articulate how this rain garden is an extension of the river. The fish evoke water and the shape of their bodies creates waves that give an additional suggestion of water on the land. As the audience passes the piece, the fish will change positions in relation to one another. The sculpture will have a kinetic feel without any moving parts. The fish will appear to be swimming and the outline of their fins will create overlapping waves, adding to the feeling that water is moving on this site. The landscape and the art have been woven together. The plants will be placed in a way that conveys the surface of water with long flowing lines along the same orientation as the fish. There are also shapes in the landscape that suggest shadows of the fish.

Kingsley First Rain Garden: Commission Discussion

At the Aug. 28 meeting, Bob Miller expressed surprise at some of the items included in the staff memo, which indicated that the artist would need to provide a plan for removing graffiti and proof that the sculptures would remain secure and permanent. Where did those items come from?

Aaron Seagraves, the city’s public art administrator, indicated that those were the result of questions raised by the task force that had recommended Wiener for the work. [Task force members are Connie Brown, Jerry Hancock, Claudette Stern, John Walters and Jeff Kahan.]

John Kotarski asked about the color of the fish sculptures. The artist had proposed white, but some members of the public had indicated a preference for cor-ten steel, which is a rusty brown. Cor-ten is a more expensive material, Kotarski noted, so that would have meant fewer fish sculptures, but the rusty brown color would stand out more in the winter.

Connie Brown reported that the task force had discussed this issue at some length, but opted to go with the artist’s preference. Miller said his only concern was about the maintenance of powder coating, which is the process that will be used to paint these sculptures. Brown replied that the artist has been directed to provide something that’s as maintenance-free as possible, with the understanding that every kind of artwork needs some kind of maintenance. Wiener will be developing a maintenance program for this work, she said.

Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator, pointed out that because the artist’s contract is less than $25,000, it does not require approval by the city council. However, he recommended that AAPAC provide a formal communication to the council about the project.

Outcome: Commissioner unanimously approved Joshua Wiener’s schematic design for the rain garden sculptures.

Life after Percent for Art

Bob Miller, chair of the public art commission, reported that he and John Kotarski had been meeting with Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator, to talk about how to move forward following the elimination of the city’s Percent for Art program earlier this summer.

Bob Miller, chair of the Ann Arbor public art commission.

From 2007 until this June, the city had funded public art through a Percent for Art mechanism, which set aside 1% of the budget for each of the city’s capital projects for public art – up to a cap of $250,000. However, at its June 3, 2013 meeting, the city council voted to eliminate the Percent for Art approach in favor of one that allows for discretionary incorporation of public art into a particular project.

Now, city staff will work to determine whether a specific capital improvement should have enhanced design features “baked in” to the project – either enhanced architectural work or specific public art. The funding for any of the enhanced features would be included in the project’s budget and incorporated into the RFP (request for proposals) process for the capital project.

On Aug. 28, Miller described the conversations with city staff as positive, but noted that there’s no clear process in place. He hoped to invite Deb Gosselin, who handles the city’s capital improvements plan (CIP), to AAPAC’s Sept. 25 meeting. Gosselin had attended AAPAC’s Feb. 27, 2013 session to explain how the CIP process works.

Life after Percent for Art: Project Spreadsheet

Aaron Seagraves, the city’s public art administrator, passed out a new spreadsheet to use for tracking public art projects. [.xls file project tracker] The spreadsheet is divided into three categories: (1) projects that have already been approved under the former Percent for Art program, with funding identified; (2) potential projects, either using remaining Percent for Art funds or private funding; and (3) potential capital projects that could be “enhanced” with public art under the new public art program. About $840,000 in Percent for Art funds are unspent.

In the third category, the potential “enhanced” capital projects are in the pipeline for the fiscal year 2016 and beyond. The idea is to identify those projects early on, so that AAPAC can work with staff to incorporate public art into the design process. Examples of those potential projects include:

• Decorative “stamping” for new sidewalks.
• Decorative “street access” (manhole) covers.
• Stadium Boulevard reconstruction, from Hutchins to Kipke.
• Improvements at the intersection of Dhu Varren Nixon.
• Detroit Street improvements.
• East Ellsworth reconstruction, from South State to Platt.
• South State Street improvements.
• Improvements at Cobblestone Farm and Leslie Science Nature Center.

Projects that have already received preliminary approval from AAPAC, which could be funded with remaining Percent for Art funds, include a mural program, as well as artwork at the city’s new wastewater treatment plant, Arbor Oaks Park, the new roundabout at South State and Ellsworth, and the Forest Avenue plaza. A memorial for Coleman Jewett and a community project called “Canoe Imagine Art” also might be eligible for remaining Percent for Art funds, although the primary source of funding would be from private donors.

Seagraves also listed a range of other potential projects that have not yet received approval from AAPAC. Those include artwork at the Ann Arbor skatepark, which recently began instruction, as well as art for the new bike share program, street and sidewalk stamping, utility boxes (signal control cabinets), fences (including a section next to new sidewalks along a stretch of Scio Church Road), and “permission walls” for graffiti.

For each project, the spreadsheet includes a traffic count at the closest intersection, to indicate how visible the location might be. Also indicated is the general geographical quadrant for each project’s location – for example, whether the project is in the southeast, central, north or west quadrant of the city.

Commissioners were supportive of the new approach. Connie Brown asked for information to be added about each project’s potential timeline.

Ann Arbor public art commissioner Connie Brown.

Nick Zagar asked about the skatepark project. Brown reported that when initially approached, skatepark organizers were “not very receptive” to the idea of incorporating public art into the project’s design. “They might have a different mindset now,” she said. [The skatepark, to be located in the northwest corner of Veterans Memorial Park, broke ground earlier this month.]

Zagar thought it would be a great location for a “permission wall” – a place where graffiti is allowed. “It seems like it’ll be unpermissionedly tagged up anyway,” he said. Seagraves noted that if art is located in the skatepark, it would be the only public art so far that’s located west of Seventh Street.

Bob Miller suggested a “permission wall” out by Argo Cascades, pointing to the wall under the trestle there that currently is covered with graffiti.

Marsha Chamberlin said she was the impetus for this new spreadsheet, as a way to help push projects forward and allocate remaining Percent for Art funds. She noted that two projects she’s working on that are mostly funded with private donations – the Coleman Jewett memorial and the “Canoe Imagine Art” community project – would benefit from public art funding. If the city commits funds to such projects, she added, it’s easier to raise money from private donors. “Money upfront gets more money.”

She hoped that AAPAC could make some funding decisions soon. “Craig [Hupy] has been telling us since April that we need to pay attention to allocating those [Percent for Art] funds,” Chamberlin said.

John Kotarski reminded commissioners that there are constraints associated with Percent for Art funding. The Percent for Art mechanism set aside funds for public art that were originally designated for infrastructure like roads or utilities. Because the money was taken from restricted funds, a thematic or geographic link must exist between the funding source and the public art expenditure. “It’s just not money that we can allocate at will for something we’d like to see brought forward,” Kotarski said.

Chamberlin pointed out that the spreadsheet indicates what category of Percent for Art funding could be used for each project.

Miller said it might be possible to vote on funding allocations for some of these projects at AAPAC’s September meeting.

AAPAC Video

Ashlee Arder recently finished a short video to promote AAPAC and the city’s public art program. She had shot footage of commissioners at their June 26, 2013 meeting, as well as at their booth at the July Townie Party.

Screenshot from a video by Ann Arbor public art commissioner Ashlee Arder. The film is black and white, with spot color. This poster was part of AAPAC’s booth at the July 15 Townie Party. (Image links to the video on YouTube.)

Commissioners watched the roughly 2-minute video at the end of their Aug. 28 meeting. Arder plans to post it on the commission’s website, Facebook page and Twitter account, @AAPublicArt. It’s also posted on YouTube.

Commissioners also spent part of their Aug. 28 meeting watching a video presentation of national public art projects that have won awards from the Americans for the Arts. Marsha Chamberlin, who participated in the meeting via conference call, gave a brief introduction to describe the annual awards process. The presentation included the award-winning work Cloudbreak by Catherine Widgery of Cambridge, Mass., who was recently selected by an AAPAC task force for a major public art project at the East Stadium bridges. [An update on that project is provided later in this article.]

Project Updates

Several projects were discussed briefly during the Aug. 28 meeting, by way of updates. Additional information was also included in a written report by Aaron Seagraves, the city’s public art administrator. [.pdf of Seagraves’ report] These projects were either already in progress when the city council temporarily halted spending on public art late last year, or don’t use Percent for Art funds.

Here are some highlights.

Project Updates: East Stadium Bridges

In early August, Catherine Widgery of Cambridge, Mass. was recommended as the artist for public art on the East Stadium bridges in Ann Arbor. She was picked by a selection panel from four finalists who had submitted proposals for the project, which has a $400,000 total budget. [.pdf of Widgery’s proposal]

Seagraves reported that the selection panel is providing feedback to Widgery and is asking that she revise her proposal before it’s presented to AAPAC and then later to the city council for approval. Members of the panel are Wiltrud Simbuerger, Bob Miller, Nancy Leff, David Huntoon and Joss Kiely. A conference call with the artist has been scheduled for Sept. 6 with panel members to discuss the proposal. [.pdf of panel feedback]

Revisions to her proposal are due by Oct. 4. Bob Miller reported that the selection panel is trying to focus her work on the connections between East Stadium Boulevard and South State Street, which runs below the bridge.

Seagraves indicated that Widgery’s revised proposal would likely be presented to some of the city’s boards and commissioners for feedback, before presentation to AAPAC. Connie Brown praised the outreach efforts that Bob Miller and John Kotarski have already undertaken for this project. They’ve made presentations to various groups, including the Ann Arbor District Library board and the park advisory commission, among others. The intent is to create community buy-in before a project is finalized.

Project Updates: Bike Share Program

Seagraves reported that he met with staff from the Clean Energy Coalition about a new bike share program that CEC is managing, with a targeted launch of April 2014. They talked about the possibility of including public art at the bike share station locations, he said, or possibly on the bikes as well. The CEC team is interested in drafting a proposal to present to AAPAC in the future, he said.

A detailed presentation about the program was made to the Ann Arbor District Library board on Aug. 19. See Chronicle coverage: “Library Board Briefed on Bike Share Program.”

Project Updates: Argo Cascades

Three finalists had been selected for artwork at the Argo Cascades, but one of them – Andy Dufford of Denver, Colo. – subsequently dropped out, Seagraves said. The remaining two finalists are Jann Rosen-Queralt of Maryland and Mags Harries Lajos Heder of Cambridge, Mass. [.pdf of staff memo on Argo Cascades public art]

Aaron Seagraves, Ann Arbor’s public art commissioner.

The artists came to town in early August to meet with the public – including a presentation at the Workantile on Main Street, and a reception at Argo Cascades. John Kotarski reported that the artists had the chance to kayak through the cascades while they were here, as did he.

Proposals will be due in early October, with presentations by the artists during the week of Oct. 14, with a specific date to be determined.

AAPAC had approved a $150,000 total budget for the Argo Cascades project on April 25, 2012.

Project Updates: Coleman Jewett Memorial

At a special meeting on March 7, 2013, AAPAC had voted to accept a memorial for Coleman Jewett as an official AAPAC project. The original proposal was for a bronze Adirondack chair at the Ann Arbor farmers market. Jewett was a long-time local educator who died in January. After he retired, he made furniture that he sold at the Ann Arbor farmers market. A private foundation has committed $5,000 to create a memorial at the market, in the form of a bronze replica of one of Jewett’s Adirondack chairs.

A memorandum of understanding has been negotiated between the Jewett family, the city, and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, which will act as a fiduciary for fundraising. The plan now calls for two full-sized replicas in bronze, at an estimated cost of $15,000 each. Materials for fundraising are being developed. Marsha Chamberlin, who is taking the lead on this project, said about 300 personalized letters to potential donors will be sent out within the next week or so.

The next step will be to write a formal request for proposals (RFP) for doing the work.

Project Updates: Canoe Imagine Art

Marsha Chamberlin has been working on a canoe art project with other local organizations, called Canoe Imagine Art. The project will use old aluminum canoes from the city of Ann Arbor’s Argo canoe livery, which artists and community groups will turn into artwork that will be displayed throughout the downtown in 2014. Partners in the project include the Ann Arbor Area Convention Visitors Bureau (CVB), the Main Street Area Association (MSAA), the Arts Alliance, and the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC). Task force members are Chamberlin; Cheryl Saam, the city’s canoe livery supervisor; Shoshana Hurand of the Arts Alliance; Mary Kerr of the CVB; Maura Thomson of the MSAA; and Laura Rubin of HRWC.

Seagraves reported that a formal agreement has been reached between the city and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, which will act as fiduciary for the funds raised on this project. Fundraising materials are being developed.

Project Updates: Arbor Oaks Park

The first task force meeting for possible artwork in the Arbor Oaks Park is set for Sept. 5. At AAPAC’s June 26, 2013 meeting, commissioners approved setting up an exploratory task force for this project, located in the Bryant neighborhood on the city’s southeast side. Members include public art commissioners Malverne Winborne and Nick Zagar; Derek Miller, deputy director of the nonprofit Community Action Network (CAN); and CAN board member David Jones.

It’s being conceived of as a community art project, Seagraves reported.

Project Updates: Wastewater Treatment Plant

Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator, had approached AAPAC earlier this year about the possibility of incorporating public art into the wastewater treatment project. The city is building a new wastewater treatment facility and renovating its existing facility in Ann Arbor Township, at 49 S. Dixboro Road. [.pdf of memo describing the wastewater treatment plant renovations]

Hupy had noted that of the remaining amount in the Percent for Art funds, much of it – about $448,000 – came from wastewater-related projects, and must be spent on public art with a “nexus” to wastewater.

John Kotarski is taking the lead on this project. He reported that he met recently with Hupy and Earl Kenzie, manager of the treatment plant. He’s also been in touch with the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum and University of Michigan, about possible participation in this project. The intent of any artwork would be to “train, teach, entertain and inspire,” he said.

Commissioners talked about the possibility of taking a field trip to the plant site, which is still under construction.

Project Updates: Fencing on Scio Church

At AAPAC’s June 26 meeting, Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator, suggested a possible public art project related to fencing. The city is putting in sidewalks along a stretch of Scio Church Road, and will also be installing a fence there. The city staff was planning to install the kind of chain link fence that they usually use, but Hupy thought there might be an opportunity for something more creative, if AAPAC wanted to explore that possibility. The construction work would likely occur next summer.

On Aug. 28, Marsha Chamberlin reported that she has collected about 30 examples of different fencing designs used in other municipalities. Bob Miller suggested that Chamberlin could present that information at AAPAC’s next meeting.

Commissioners present: Ashlee Arder, Connie Brown, Marsha Chamberlin (via conference call), John Kotarski, Bob Miller, Nick Zagar. Also: Aaron Seagraves, the city’s public art administrator, and Craig Hupy, the city’s public services area administrator.

Absent: Malverne Winborne.

Next regular meeting: Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013 at 4:30 p.m. in the basement conference room at city hall, 301 E. Huron St. [Check Chronicle events listing to confirm date]

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