twilight tour at LongHouse

LongHouse Reserve is the 16-acre residence of designer Jack Lenor Larson which over the years has been converted into a most amazing public garden right here in East Hampton.  Loaded with fabulous plantings and thought provoking artwork, LongHouse is tucked away in a nearby residential part of town and is such a treat for me given my love of horticulture and art.  The other evening we went and joined LH staff for an exquisite Twilight Tour which they are now offering on Mondays from 6-8pm.  As advertised it is a perfect time of day to see the gardens and grounds and various pieces and collections in a beautiful light.  Check out these sheered hornbeams (Carpinus) and sculpture by Izumi Masatoshi.

Fuyu, 2008
Swedish granite
H. 59, L. 59, W. 33", 6,600 lbs.
courtesy of Koichi Hara, Gallery Japonesque, San Francisco 

found art

I found this the other day and was instantly intrigued. Since I don't want to get myself in trouble I am not going to say where I was within the five boroughs but stumbling through woods and sand and stone all of a sudden this huge slab of (I presume) marble was under foot. So I did a little research, and by that I totally over exaggerate, it was just a Google search, but I learned about an American conceptual artist named Jenny Holzer. In 1977 Holzer began a project entitled Truisms. She would take her complications of statements and aphorisms (vocab word of the day, aphorism: an original thought, spoken or written in a concise and memorable form) and display them in a number of different visual installations throughout the city over the following number of years. Where this stone was originally and how it came to where it is now I have no idea, another part of my vagueness, but I had to share it. As we head into this year of making changes and doing our best to live on our terms, a much longer post I have been intending to write, I couldn't help but find it interesting that I would come across these found truisms that date back to my birth year of '77. You have to love the subjective nature of art, mixed with that little taste of exploration and discovery, for that is the stuff that makes me smile.

favorite poster

"Youth and Beauty"
subway ad
Astoria, Queens, NYC

I usually get out of the house a little after 5:30 in the morning. By quarter of six I am on the local train platform, watching the M train pass and waiting until the R train comes through. It will show up at 5:53am like clockwork. Across the tracks I stare at this subway ad. It's for a show at the Brooklyn Museum up through next weekend. The poster has obviously been up for a while and adorned accordingly. As a silly game to play with myself I try and keep tabs on the new posters when they go up and see how long it takes before they get defaced, but inevitably I forget or realize it's really a totally ridiculous exercise and continue about my business. But I never tire of the metamorphosis these posters go through over the weeks and months exposed to the masses. I love this poster to begin with, the painting by American painter Luigi Lucioni from 1928, but with the blue tag and scratch I somehow love it that much more. The Art of the American 20's meets the art of the 20-teens. I love capturing these snapshots so that I can revisit them years down the road and be taken right back to the early New York City mornings like this one.

local graffiti, Pigeon Island, St. Lucia

the 'Stone

We went east for a weekend at the folks house. Hearing of the intense rage and hysteria that was accompanying this summer season in the Hamptons we made sure to steer clear, keep the mood chill and the vibe positive. This included a walk and dip up at Maidstone, and it was as perfect. Of course you don't get me near a rocky beach without a few cairns popping up.

Mrs. Krissy caught me in the act.

Slow and steady wins the race, not that we were racing.

Gardiners Bay in all her glory.

A cairn is the term for a man-made pile of stones, derived from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic "carn" or plural "cairn". Traditionally they are used as a marker or landmark, often with some social, cultural, or religious significance. For those of you that know Andy Goldsworthy and other installation artists you know they have become admired as a form of art as well. And if you don't know Andy Goldsworthy then you should check out his coffee table books or the documentary "Rivers and Tides". A bit Artsy, but genius really. this reminds me I never posted pictures from Storm King last year. hmmm. but enough about that...
Note: no honking horns, no screaming obscenities or expletives, no false sense of entitlement, no pretense, just the peaceful enjoying of our naturally beautiful surroundings. Ahhh....

this post goes out to Miss Erin Backus and the NEWFS crew of '06, Scott, Tom, and the gang. miss all you crazy people. dare I say, Rock On!

one shot cropped five ways

Above is a shot I took of the Burnett Fountain at the Conservatory Garden in Central Park back at the end of July. I couldn't quite figure out the best way to crop it so I opted to go with a number of options.
In the fountain is a fabulous container of Colocasia and Acorus. The Acorus is a new experiment this year and I think it looks great at the base of the Colocasia. Usually you see the two in annual beds and container gardening but since they are water loving plants they can also stand to live in a fountain or pond, as long as the water is circulating of course. Stagnant water will rot and kill even the toughest of aquatic critters so you always have to make sure the water is flowing and fresh. Pot the plants in a soil mix that is more clay-like than what you would use for regular potting above sea level. But hey, if all you have is potting mix you can actually make that work too. If you fear that some of the soil mix will not hold then you can mulch your aquatic containers with pebbles or gravel as long as you do not bury the crown of the plant. This way the soil stays in while your plants stems and foliage continue to grow from the root system. Worse comes to worse you just have to skim your pond a little after placing your containers to remove unwanted floating peat moss or perlite. I didn't realize how easy aquatic gardening can be and yet people are always amazed and really love it, thinking you have done something so extraordinary.
The sculpture is by Bessie Potter Vonnoh. In 1924 Frances Hodgson Burnett passed away, author of The Secret Garden which was first published in 1917. After her passing, as the story goes, a committee was formed to create a memorial in her honor somewhere in the city. A place for the children of New York to be able to read a book, have an outdoor classroom, experience and fall in love with nature, the south garden was picked as the spot before the Conservatory Garden was opened to the public in September of 1937. Though the fountain is not titled as such it is loosely based on the two main characters, Dickon (above) and Mary (below). Even though the south garden is often described as the English garden within the six-acre formal garden many locals lovingly know it as the secret garden.

The tropical water lilies are grown like the Colocasia and Acorus. Potted in soil and mulched with gravel the lilies are placed in the fountain in early June and grow and bloom magnificently all summer. The only challenge is the huge crabapple tree that grows over head and adds a little more shade to the scenario every year.

Forgive me that I have been a real blog-posting slacker recently. With my wedding less than a month away and my fiancee and I uber planners there hasn't been much extra time for photos and freewrites and all that good stuff. Not to mention Hurricane Danielle is beginning to push some swells to our local surf spots so tomorrow we are leaving the technology behind to find the true knowledge. Wish us luck! cheers, AEF

where my eyes go

I don't know what it is about old dilapidated signs, but I sure do love them. Big old commercial signs hinting to by-gone eras and their products. If they involve painted brick even better. They send me into a total world of wonderment. I can enjoy getting stuck thinking about what the scene looked like back then, and how different from today. The gadgets and technology of the time, the employees and how they acted, the customers and how they were dressed. The combination of studying anthropology and art during college might explain some part of this funny fascination. Perhaps the fact my father was in advertising for well over 35 years. Who knows, following horticulture maybe I'll go into graphic design.

These glimpses into the past I found in downtown Newark, NJ. I had been going back and forth between New York and New Jersey judging a garden contest for the past two afternoons. (...and yes, there are plenty of gardens in Newark, wise guy). From the train station to the meeting point is the central stretch of downtown, a very busy Market Street. Along it are some great old arcades, facades, and other eye catchers. Only got two pics since I was striding at a steady clip to make it there before the start of the afternoon session. Still, I think they're great looking. I wonder if the salesmen at The Furniture King were some slick-suited and smiling fellows.