Serenity in the Garden

On June 8, 2019 the NY Botanical Garden will open their new exhibit dedicated to Roberto Burle Marx! I visited it this week in a preview and it is spectacular!  You have to see it - #plantlove The centerpiece of Burle Marx show at #NYBG I wrote this a few years ago and feel it is the perfect time to share this post again: Roberto Burle Marx Roberto Burle Marx  (1909-1994) was my idol when I studied landscape architecture at the University of Hawaii in the 1970s: he worked with tropical plants and was trained in painting. I loved that Burle Marx painted every morning before attending to his design practice and that he said he 'painted his gardens'. tablecloth design by Burle Marx  He also asserted that the creation of a garden was 'an attempt to regain a lost paradise'. I could not agree more! Flamengo park Burle Marx's grasp of pattern was one of his signature features.  His bold use of color and shape captured the Br...

'Serenity in the Garden' is my way to gladden someone's day and to share my wonder at people' s creativity and Nature's beauty. Here are a few garden marvels: photo by Jan Johnsen  I worked in the gardens of Mohonk Mt. House (a hotel) decades ago. It is still one of my favorite places! In New Paltz, NY. I took this photo of their unique rustic gazebos that border Mohonk Lake.   "Much patience required. VERY steady hands, heartbeat, breathing, one’s entire being.. required." - Michael Grab (shown here with his creation).  http://www.gravityglue.com/   Do you know what is missing in this Zen inspired sand garden? a leaf - lying haphazadly atop the sand. ah, so. W hy not a 'poetry wall' garden? this is in Brooklyn, NY. Design by Terrain..  http://www.terrain-nyc.net/ photo by Jan Johnsen Look carefully - this is a photo on a banner affixed to a plain wall - makes it look like a real cascade! I took this photo in K...

Artist Norm Magnusson lives near Woodstock, New York.   Yes, that Woodstock... Magnusson (see his website,  Funism ) is an artist that uses all media to get his ideas across. (Zig Zag Leaves - Norm Magnusson) In his  'Decorating Nature'  series of art photos (giclee prints - they're for sale) Magnusson paints on or colors pieces of nature, like adding stripes to a fallen leaf, painting a pine cone blue or drawing concentric rings on a stone. He says, (Blue Cone - Norm Magnusson) "We use nature to how we see fit: we strive to bring order to it,  we seek to explain it in a language that doesn’t belong to it,  we try to make it prettier,  we try to make it better,  we try to make it more profitable.  Some efforts succeed, some do n’t."       (amen to that - Jan) (Tree Rock - Norm Magnusson) But Magnusson also says that his art photos are all about beauty, saying, "Beauty ...

ALERT!   Only 7 more days until the  fabulous Dale Chihuly exhibit at NY Botanical Garden closes : Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.  CHIHULY Nights: Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through October 2017, plus Wednesday, October 25,  and  Sunday, October 29; 6:30–10:30 p.m.  RESERVE NOW:   https://www.nybg.org/visit/admission/ in the day, as you walk around, you might find this.... This is your last chance to see the immensely popular show - by day or night. I suggest you start in early evening and watch as the darkness brings out the glass sculptures in a way nothing else can. It features 20 installations! In the spotlights, the plants seem to dance along with the art.... That is what I did with my family visiting from Florida. We entered, visited the phenomenal bookstore ( another must for garden lovers) and then walked  the grounds  in the late afternoon light. The sweeping vistas and art co...

I once had a landscape client named Dr. Maury Leibovitz. He was an older gentleman and asked me to create a perennial garden for him in his large property in Greenwich, Ct.  We had a lot of fun doing it. He enjoyed it greatly. During that time he gave me a tour of his estate's grounds and shared stories of  the magnificent sculptures that dotted the landscape.  I learned that he started out as an accountant for  Occidental Petroleum Corporation and became an associate of the the corporation's late chairman, Dr. Armand Hammer . Leibovitz  and Hammer shared a love of fine art and together purchased Knoedler Galleries and Publishing in 1971. Jo Davidson and Gertrude Stein in Paris - photo by Man Ray  Maury shared stories of how he found certain artists. And one sculpture in particular he loved - Gertrude Stein by Jo Davidson .  He and I stood there  and admired it, set in a pastoral setting, and I listened to ...

Rock Art by Thomas D Kent, Jr This is funny.   Glenn Eichler wrote an open letter to the New York Botanical Garden in 2014 in the New Yorker regarding his love of their rock garden. He felt it deserved more attention:  "...rocks—dragged by glaciers, striped and striated by, I guess, also glaciers—deserve better.  Not sexy? Compared to what, the Donald J. Bruckmann Crabapple Collection?  No disrespect to Mr. Bruckmann, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards haven’t spent fifty years playing to sold-out crowds as the Rolling Crabapples, the world’s greatest crabapple-and-roll band." Glenn has a point, don't you think? Mick Jagger in garden

Giverny - onet's garden outside Paris ' Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand,  as if it were necessary to understand,  when it is simply necessary to love. ' - Claude Monet Monet's Giverny By Snap 713 on Flickr

Take two branches. Run twine between them as shown and weave anything you want! I cannot fine the source of this photo but it is a great idea for kids....or a kid at heart. For some great photos of a real 'Earth Loom' project by Cheryl Corson - click on her name.

Painting - Henri Matisse A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood pressure.  - Henri Matisse garden - Jan Johnsen