The Late Show Gardens - Visual Impact

Resting Dragon by Stephen Glassman

The site-specific installation arises from a grassy expanse in John Greenlee's 

Mediterranean Meadow Garden.

Materials: Planed and stained, and natural bamboo; stone; gambions.

After the Fall

....a sculptural installation by sculptor and award-winning landscape architect, Jack Chandler.

Chandler breaks new ground at The Late Show Gardens, moving away from the picturesque, contemporary settings designed by the firm of Chandler & Chandler.

Chandler pulls no punches here, offering up a design "not drenched in fantasy, but ...the reality of a world warmed and polluted by our own hands."

The artist, Simple's lighthearted creation made from harvested grasses.

Simple's Horticultural Art Gallery is located in Douglasville, PA.

Succulents & Stone 

Complementary and contrasting - shapes, textures and alluring color:

Displays from Artefact Design & Salvage, 

on the grounds of Cornerstone Sonoma.

Garden Play - Topher Delaney, Designer

Garden Play by Topher Delaney  -  Seam Studio: Land Projects

Environmental artist; garden builder; sculptor: It's not easy to fit Topher Delaney (and the work produced by Seam Studio) into a given category.

Nor is.... Garden Play, Delaney's installation, pictured here as the final post - for the time being, featuring garden installations at Cornerstone Sonoma.

Having been called beautiful and witty, Delaney's design poses questions about the nature (pun intended) of a garden.

Shade fabric, used on either side, closes off the space, while Bar Code 39 - illustrated along the back wall and made of recycled plastic lumber, indicates the symbolism/significance = to garden play.

Have gardens become commodities? How do you define a garden?

Delaney planted eight birch trees: their white trunks and gestural branches repeating the white of the fabric enclosure on 2 sides. The ground plane, too, composed of crushed oyster shells, represents another bright white element. All these facets continually shift in tone; as rain falls in a cascade, clouds pass overhead, or the oftentimes brilliant rays of the sun burn down. Shadows from the trees and the oversize balls bring another lively aspect to the surroundings.

Take in the space from a seat on one of the woven spheres. Or, perhaps you're more inclined to toss them about.

Spare... minimal? Yes. Playful and provocative? Most definitely.

Garden Play is one of numerous child-friendly environments at Cornerstone. A place where you're likely to see kids interacting with the adults in-tow; enjoying opportunities to experience early-on the challenging notions associated with the art of gardens.

As founder and president Chris Hougie directed the designers at the outset, "... invent, inform, and create beautiful and compelling gardens that engage and inspire the viewer intellectually, emotionally, and aesthetically."

Link to: Cornerstone Sonoma on Alice's Garden Travel Buzz

Garden Contrasts - A Garden Installation

Garden Contrasts

Design: OVSLA

Cornerstone Sonoma's garden

creators make up an international roster of eminent landscape architects and designers, while the gallery-style gardens express ideas from whimsical to lyrical to more weighty concerns.

In September of 2006, Cornerstone joined with the Garden Conservancy to host a series of design talks, resulting in a lively discourse on the art of the garden.

A new garden designed by the firm of Oehme, van Sweden & Associates premiered in conjunction with the seminar.  James van Sweden, an influential figure associated with the New American Garden style, and partner Sheila Brady follow a philosophy that references natural meadows, an ecologically minded, low- maintenance approach, and the skillful uniting of informal plantings within a refined hardscape.

The OVSLA design for Cornerstone achieves a lovely clarity in its division of space. Abetted by a diagonal arrangement of 'Tuscan Blue' rosemary, forming a long hedge, the fragrant shrubbery effectively bisects the garden's rectangular layout. Along the boundary to the rear of the hedge, the garden yields to a gathering of olive trees, and plantings of herbaceous perennials that pay homage to the shifting seasons.

In describing the concept, Brady pointed out the design's interplay with geometries: The rectangle... strongly contrasted with the diagonal... and a circular overlay, resulting in a play of light and shade. 

Meander along the pathway and your focus turns from the sculpted multi-stems of the olives, to a vibrant juxtaposition: Within a monolithic field of grasses - punctuated by California poppies - a massing of winter-flowering Agave attenuata emerges in a wedge-shaped, sunny corner. The demonstrative succulent rosettes of the agaves offset the lacy leaves of perennials such as ferns and columbines, growing along the sheltered area behind the trees.

Earth Walk, A Garden Installation

Earth Walk

A garden installation by Pamela Burton

"Even though it is right under our feet, the earth is a living organism that we generally ignore."   Pamela Burton

Built in 2004 when Cornerstone Sonoma opened as the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens,

landscape architect Pamela Burton's installation, Earth Walk, demonstrates an emotionally resonant physicality. 

At ground level, bales of straw contribute to a sense of enclosure, while the space itself reveals a massive wedge carved out of the terrain.

Approaching, the eye focuses on a central expanse of billowy Mexican feather grass. Enter, and follow the inclined ground plane alongside the grassy swath to the floor of the garden... where a tranquil pool appears.

The raw beauty of Burton's design - created from a few fundamental elements - allows visitors to experience the profound materiality of the exposed earth. 

Each time I visit, I'm swept away by the way Burton blurs any distinctions that may exist between gardens & art:  The installation standing as an elegant sculpture. Moreover, a poetic rendition of a garden.

For more on Cornerstone, click below:

http://bayareatendrils.blogspot.com/2009/04/ornaments-in-garden-cornerstone-sonoma.html

Garden Ornaments Part 2: Destination, Cornerstone Sonoma

A New Leaf Gallery - Contemporary Sculpture

 Sally Russell 'Totems'

CORNERSTONE SONOMA

Shops... Wine Tasting .... Sonoma Valley Visitors Center

and

.... Garden Installations ....

appearing on Bay Area Tendrils in the weeks ahead

Artefact Design & Salvage

Cornerstone Sonoma Event Space designed by Ron Lutsko, Lutsko Associates

Arbor draped in the fragrant blooms of Rosa 'Sombreuil'

Objects, Ornaments and Treasures - Artefact Design and Salvage

Resin Buddha - Zipper

Cornerstone Sonoma - 23570 Highway 121 (Arnold Drive) - Sonoma, CA

'Ornaments in the Garden' on Bay Area Tendrils

Ornaments in the Garden, Cornerstone Sonoma

Boulder planters and bowls carved from river rocks - Strangler fig vine form, peeled and sanded -  Interior of store: vine form & machine formed steel spheres, Thai shrine & scroll trunk.

Artefact Design & Salvage  (Photos courtesy Artefact)

at

Cornerstone Sonoma

In July 2004 Cornerstone opened as the Festival of Gardens, drawing inspiration from the yearly garden event at Chaumont, in the Loire Valley, France.

BayAreaTendrils will feature Cornerstone's garden installations in the weeks to come:

Gardens created by Topher Delaney, Pamela Burton, & Van Sweden & Associates

....along with updates on The Late Show Gardens, taking place at Cornerstone in September.

For now.... enjoy the above sampling of items available at Artefact Design & Salvage,

an enterprise located on the 9-acre Cornerstone property, where visitors also find wine tasting rooms, and a cafe to enjoy a delightful meal. 

Galleries & shops offer sculpture, glazed & terra cotta planters, books & furnishings for interiors and outdoor spaces. 

Look for future posts to highlight tantalizing objects fit for a variety of design styles & sensibilities.