September 2014

Our raised drive serves as an island during the winter floods we experience here all to frequently. It also serves as a repository for all the plants I can’t grow in our deep, rich alluvial soils.  Our drive is built of sand and rock, mostly, garnered from a restructuring of the banks of the Snoqualmie River north of Carnation, in an effort to reduce flooding. So all the species tulips that aren’t in pots go into the gravelly soil, and do  quite well there. We grow a hedge of lavender and other Mediterranean  herbs that would sulk in our soils.  I call the drive our Mediterranean garden for that reason. As I get ready to head of the the Island of Elba again, and to the gardens at the Eremo di Santa Caterina, I thought I would post a picture of one of the endemics of the Tuscan Archipelago which  I grow here, maybe one of the only sites outside of Italy.

Linajola dell’ Arcipelago ( Linaria capraria), surprised me when it survived for a few years out here in our foggy, cold valley, but it didn’t surprise me when last winter’s excessive bouts of cold finished fit off. Luckily I still had a few seeds and started a fresh crop, some went in the ground and some are staying in a pot, so I can protect them if winter turns bitter again.

I will publish more photos of Elba and it’s wonderful flora when I return in October.

I finally visited Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley a few weeks ago. Storm King was founded as a nonprofit museum back in 1960. Since that time they have been collecting modern sculpture for outdoor viewing. In 1972 they began in earnest building a permanent collection of large-scale sculpture and site-specific pieces. The often-gargantuan sculptures are sited through the 500-acre rolling terrain replete with forests, meadows, ponds and parking lots.

The beautiful undulating and rocky landscape was the star of Storm King, my taste for 70s and 80s metal sculptures in respectful at best. I like rocks: the swell and ripple of marble nudes of Ancient Greece or the granite temple lanterns of Japan. The art at Storm King is rarely if ever that literal, or utilitarian.

As my old friend Bre and I walked through the grounds I would walk up to each natural stone and jokingly look for the informational plaque with artist’s name, year of construction, and materials used. I then imagined just making plaques with my name, a date, and a simple title, like “stone” and placing them about this open air museum. Tongue was in cheek, of course.

Then I saw this rock in the woods. It seemed odd, out of place.  Had an artist actually taken a rock and moved it into the woods and put his name on it? How clever and how despicable! As we approached, everything about this rock said “rock” : mass, weight, and irregular moss covered surfaces. But still something did not seem right about this rock. When we were right up on top of it we saw what it was. It was not a rock at all, but a façade, a stage set, a joke. This was trompe l’oeil to the nth degree. I laughed, just laughed and laughed. It made me strangely happy to be so well fooled.

“Now there is artistry!”

I think I would have been disappointed if an artist had just dragged a rock into the woods and put his name on it.

One of my favorite artists works extensively in rock, Isamu Noguchi. After being duped by the faux-rock piece, I snuck up on ‘Momo Taro’ with trepidation. It looked like a pile of rocks, but what we found in the balance of worked and unworked surfaces was a tranquility that asked us to stay. We sat, we fondled, I took pictures, as a way of fondling, a way of understanding. I cannot verbalize the appeal of this piece, nor my infatuation with Noguchi’s work in general.  In my mind no one touches rock or touches me with rock, like he does.: across between the undulating marbles of Greece and the granite past of Japan.

All I can say is it is real and it is beautiful…

Of course then there is Andy Goldsworthy…

I was elated to finally and actually see his much publicized and photographed “Storm King Wall”. And here I go publishing some more photographs, though after seeing it and trying to photograph it I realized there is no way to capture it. Words bang in my head, images only hint. And those hints betrayals of the absolute humanity of this piece. Never does it feel ostentatious, arty or haughty. Never is it beyond anyone’s reach. And yet so sublime, so very sublime to leave me speechless (more or less).

A thing of nature, and for nature, but wholly man-made.

There is so much to see at Storm King, I must say I feel my treatment here is unfair on many levels.  Louise Nevelson was represented by a beautiful piece, and Ursula von Rydingsvard’s  “Luba” was a revelation.

And there were Calders !