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Garden History

Every garden is a replica, a representation, an attempt to recapture something.

Robert Harbison Eccentric Spaces

After Parkinson

In this series of small mixed media images I returned again to my battered reprint of John Parkinson’s 1629 Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (Park-in-Sun’s Earthly Paradise). Seen as the first western garden manual, it collected woodcuts of a thousand known plants found in England at the time, and organizing them as “The Place, The Time, The Names, The Virtues.” Many of these plants were brought from North America and many others brought back.

My walking and study merge in recognitions of local wild plants in this collection of historic prints, as I rethink my relationship to the place, the time, the names, and the virtues of what I see in my garden paradise.

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All images are mixed media: litho, acrylic and ink. 18x13-19x14 cm $125.00

Garden History

Escape

The drawings in Escape and Wilder are inspired by John Parkinson’s1629 Paradisi in sole Paradisus Terrestris, one of the first garden manuals printed in England. Where Parkinson's collected woodcuts are used to organize the name, the place, the time and the virtues of native and newly introduced specimens, my images layer what is familiar, recognizing them as escapes naturalized in Canadian fields. Colour, as well as stencilled patterns based on historic pattern, suggest the growth and form of the plants amplifying the familiar identification, but also placing it within the domestic. Beeswax, a final layer, evokes a further mnemonic with the aroma of honey that emanates from the work.

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Escape All images 76x102cm, mixed print media on washi, acrylic, oil and beeswax mounted on panel. $1800