LATE SPRING/EARLY SUMMER 2024
WELCOME POEM | 1986
With summer upon us, I am handing over the welcome letter to late poet, Mary Oliver, as she captures—like no other—the seasonal renewal of this time of year. Thanks for the read!
Cali
Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
PRESS | 5.24
Feature on Emily Henderson’s Farmstead in Oregon
In the recently released June / July issue of Country Living is a feature of our work on the homestead of designer and author, Emily Henderson and her young family in Portland, Oregon. It includes alpacas, wildflowers, and snacking hedges. Thanks to Emily for the opportunity to bring this dreamy project to life. You can also read more about the Soake Pool and outdoor decor tips from the project in Better Homes and Gardens.
MEADOWS 101 | 3.24
The Mechanics of Meadowmaking
In our work, we are often knitting together natural areas with cultivated landscapes. In that liminal space, we work a lot on meadows. To frame the conversation, we turn to horticulturalist Kelly D Norris. In New Naturalism, he writes “For all the contemporary fascination with meadows, it’s worth a short diatribe to put the term in context. Meadows are agricultural inventions, gently managed grasslands in the hands of humanity for centuries by crop rotation, grazing, or seasonal haying. In effect, a meadow is a garden on an agricultural scale” (115). What I would like to talk about here today is when and why to make a meadow, what they do for wildlife and the human spirit, and the role they can play in a landscape. As illustrative examples, we are sharing our work on six meadow types for Meadowlake Farm, a 30-acre property in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Thanks to our clients, Ken and Jackie, for sharing the content.
There are three native ecosystems that meadows draw from: prairies, grasslands, and savannas. Working in the American West, these are iconic natural landscapes, from short grass prairies to Montana’s vast grasslands to the the oak savannas of the inland valleys of California and Oregon. Meadows are easiest to construct when the environmental conditions align with those found in their natural proxies: full sun, south facing, an absence of trees, such as open fields, clearings, forest edges.
Why to make a meadow is another thing entirely. There is an effortlessness to meadows that is enticing, romantic. The swaying of grass, the pockets of wildflowers. Yet, underlaying the seeming nonchalance of a meadow are disturbance regimes necessary to their survival. A grassland or prairie relies on fire, grazing, low nutrient soil, drought, among other stressors, to maintain its ecological dominance. A meadow is no different, left to its own devices a meadow will be colonized by trees, by invasive plants, by its most dominant species. As such, we must always remember that a meadow is a managed system, but one that offers profound ecological value and can fit into almost any footprint.
What a meadow can do for us as land stewards is to offer a bridge to the natural world. In a society that values highly maintained, low diversity lawns and ornamental landscapes, a meadow offers a middle ground. It is a vehicle to introduce plant diversity, decay, and wildlife habitat into a cultivated landscape. Because a meadow is a human construction, it can reflect our own idiosyncrasies, such as a love for a specific bird, butterfly, or plant, while also bridging local ecological shortfalls. Meadows free us from the expectations of constant maintenance in exchange for diversity and birdsong. Below is the modest transformation of our own front lawn into a native-driven meadow and pollinator hedgerow, shown here in its promising first year. We went from 2 species to over 50 and it is simply teeming with life.
CARTES POSTALES | 3.24
Postcards from Paris
Dear Reader,
While visiting Paris recently, I discovered the Admirable Trees of Versailles program. Framed as a walk through time, the program highlights tree species and specimens collected and admired from Louis XIV (the Sun King) through Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In 1764, the Queen directed her gardeners to plant this Pagoda Tree (Styphnolobium japanicum) near her private retreat, the Petit Trianon (pictured in background) to shade the merry-go-round game her family and intimate friends enjoyed. Two-hundred and sixty years later, the tree stands as a survivor of the Revolution and a 1999 storm that destroyed over 18,000 plants within the garden.
From Paris with Warm Regards,
Amanda
Dear Reader,
My parents lived in Paris before we were born and it has lived large in my imagination. During our trip, we had a lunch with my parents’ friend of many decades, Philippe. He had lost his wife of 49 years (a witty and exuberant American) the year before. As we walked through the streets of Paris, the City was alive with her memory, and his love, respect, and grief over her. It was a tender day, special, and he introduced us to Jardin des Plantes. After our lunch together, my family went everyday, exploring different nooks. My favorite was the alpine plant collection, a delicate sunken garden hidden away next to the zoo. It was the perfect scale for our one-and-a half-year-old, Juni, to explore. She is photographed here feeding the fairies tucked in the blooms. Traveling with a small child is slow, present-minded, and experiencing Paris with her was a reminder of how cities can hold so much of life’s abundance. At our lunch with Philippe, she broke a dish. When we apologized to the waiter, he shrugged it off with a smile and said ‘this, my dear, is the sweetness of life.’
Cali
RESEARCH WORMHOLE | 3.24
Faux Bois or Trabajo Rústico: Concrete Artisanship from Paris to Little Rock
Amanda Jeter
During my tenure at the MLA program at the University of Colorado Denver, Professor Ann Komara led our cohort through remarkable landscapes, from processional axes carved into the sandstone cliffs to the Temple of Hatshepsut in Egypt.
As we travelled through time and space to 19th century Paris, France, she described the innovative concrete and rock work in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, a previously vermin-infested rock quarry, designed by the landscape designer Jean-Charles-Adolphe Alphand between 1864-67. Historian Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, writes that the “spirit that informs [the 19th century Parisian parks including Butte Chaumont] is highly theatrical” with “elaborate stage sets…composed of rock work combining natural and simulated stones.” (Rogers, 2001).
19th century artisans crafted those simulated stones and rustic branches from industrial innovations in cast iron and Portland cement to create picturesque urban parks that referenced the natural environment while delivering longer durability than wooden structures. Fast-forward to opening credits of Gone with the Wind, the camera focuses on the site of the Old Mill at T.R. Pugh Memorial Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, a 1930’s reconstruction of an 1800s water-powered grist mill. The Mill features faux bois (fake wood) or trabajo rústico created by Mexican sculptor Dionicio Rodríguez.
There is a dramatic, theatrical quality to the bridges, benches and views, framed by the bone-colored trabajo rústico at the Old Mill. Bark-textured limbs and roots unfurl in remarkable swirls, loops and arches that enable the park visitor to cross streams, enjoy a shaded seat or picturesquely frame views of Lakewood Lake and Old Mill itself. The artisan, Dionicio Rodríguez, worked throughout Mexico early in his career. After the Mexican Revolution, he moved to southern United States in the early 1900s and is credited with inspiring many contemporary artisans and pioneering a finish coat still used today (Light & Rush, 2021).
In their book, authors Patsy Pittman Light and Kent Rush detail the legacy of Rodríguez as well as the techniques and stages used to create trabajo rústico. Wired rebar, mesh cylinders, trowels, brushes, forks, metal and brushes are some of the tools in the three-part construction process that includes articulations, surface modeling and texturing and applying color (Light & Rush, 2021).
As we contemplate craft and placemaking today, how could the natural and theatrical qualities of trabajo rústico be used in playgrounds, gardens, orchards and public spaces? Light and Rush’s book highlights several contemporary artists to inspire.
Bibliography
Light, P. P., & Rush, K. (2021). Artisans of Trabajo Rustico: The Legacy of Dionicio Rodriguez. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
Rogers, E. B. (2001). Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., Publishers.
The Late Summer / Early Fall Issue will delve into farm planning and woodworking. Thanks for the read! If you prefer to opt out, please click the link below.
THE END