Sculpture Garden

Drawing class was cancelled last night due to a no-show model. After getting over being mildly pissed-off because the convenor COULD have EMAILED us before we drove all the way out there, we offered to drive our classmate home. Her husband had driven away before she read the cancellation notice on the front door. The 'wasted' evening turned out to be a gift in disguise.

Our classmate is a gifted sculptor and an artist who lives her art. As we pulled into her driveway, her garden quietly held forth the products of this lady's hands, mind and soul working in harmony. Small cement-covered figures climbed a large tree, frolicking on the branches in the twilight. An oval basin, propped on four legs to waist-height held a planting of Corkscrew Willow trimmings - a contained forest of bright green sculptured branches. A female figure curled up in the humus, just off the path, her hair a frothing of green sedums, a blush of lichen beginning to cover the muscles of her back. Her repose, peaceful. Two four-foot chunks of scrap curb-side concrete were sculpted & set into standing pieces - twin towers with sinuous designs cut into them.

The back garden held more delights. Pieces of iron-mongery salvaged from condemned buildings & scrapheaps found new meaning in mobiles, frames and abstract pieces of art, filling the small (30'x40') space. A large concrete abstract sculpture took centre stage on the curved brick patio. Sash window counterweights, heavily oxidized, swung from a branch as we passed them. The whole of the outside was a garden of delights - a lifetime's work in progress.

Inside was more of the same. Writhing sculptures, mostly of women, cast in clay, concrete, hydrocal and whatever other mediums were available. The kitchen cupboards were topped with a row of bodies, strategically lit with small halogen track lights - no boxes of cereal or canned goods as decoration here!

Art filled every room - the house was a gallery devoted to this lady's genius, and her husband was the curator & exhibit designer.

So the evening had a surprise ending for us. An inspiration...and now I have some ideas for MY garden. I can hear my husband groaning.