Long Live Green

Life can throw you upside down, side to side and back around again. The greatest challenge is to embrace anything and everything that comes your way with the upmost positivity, always knowing there is someone up there looking down at you to whom you need to make proud. 

It is surprises like this in your day that makes that hurdle a little bit more bearable to tackle... in association with Hermès on Sloane Street, eco-friendly london based, ice-green are providing our taste buds with floral-inspired delectables of ice cream and sorbets to celebrate Chelsea Flower Show, London. You can find Boney and his parasol of silk ties until the end of the week - I highly recommend the Lavender sorbet. Many thanks to ice-green for making life ride a little easier!

NY Update

I just received some feedback from the last Open Weekend at Winter Space from across the pond and the event was a huge success. My proposal to install Flamingo Parade onto the surrounding walls of the garden was received warmly by the 104th Street community gardeners who attended and interest in my 'green obelisk' will see it placed in the garden - the idea being that I will make a template and instructions for the gardeners to make the skeletal obelisk themselves. Particular thanks must be given to Suzanne Charle who I had the pleasure of meeting at the opening of the show - she is on the Committee of Gardeners and her interest in the project has been very encouraging - her passion for the garden and invaluable knowledge of all things green will see the obelisks covered in vine instead of moss as I originally intended, due to the New York's weather temperament. The plan is also to include work form the other artists in the show with the intention of making the garden at 104th Street a landmark lot for gardeners and artists alike. We are still preparing a proposal for funding, but until then, you will have to make do with my impression of the garden above ...

Ecclectic Fetish

The fountain of inspiration cannot be more flowing than at Dover Street Market. Known for its art gallery-esque installations more au fait with its Mayfair neighbours, the Shoe Space on the Second Floor welcomes the antiques and objets d'arts curated by Les Trois Garcons. The trio behind one of my favourite watering holes, LoungeLover, expresses their passion for ecclecticism to the max and its great to see them take on such a project.

Sunday 29th March 12-5pm

The show I'm exhibiting in, A Lot Of Possibilities, in New York is inviting everyone to the last Open Weekend at Winter Space. Host will present a day of invited speakers and talks about the participating artist's projects. Details of the exhibition's creative catalogue will also be available as well as an introduction to the following season's program at Spring Space by Jo Q. Nelson. My proposal for a wall installation in the community garden at 104th Street will be presented and discussed with the community gardeners - all are very welcome!

The exhibition will continue to be open throughout the year by appointment only. For more information visit SpaceAllOver.

LDN ART

A few shows in London I recently visited - enjoy ...

Haunch of Venison has revitalized 6 Burlington Gardens into 21,500 square feet of mythological spectacle. Their new exhibition, Mythologies, features both commissioned work for the space as well as works from prominent and emerging artists. The execution of the space behind the Royal Academy, allows you to meander through 11 rooms of cultural fantasy and reinterprets the space as it once was, the Museum of Mankind. Look out for works by Dube, Locke, Coley and Banerjee.

New Paintings by Takashi Murakami at Gagosian flood the shop-front space on Davies Street. Prepare to fall in love with, or not, Kaikai and Kiki, which feature in the painting and animation.

Finally, find yourself in the Middle East in the East End at my friend Aya Haidar's first solo show, 1982 at Bischoff/Weiss. Her native country Lebanon is the setting for the sensory installation, leading you from military checkpoints on the maps that line the walls to the scores of notes played on the violin that reverberate throughout the space.

Knock Knock ... Who's there?

A sneak preview of a new series of repeat patterns I am currently working on. While still designing the garden proposal for 104th Street in Manhattan, I have also begun creating a new series of work, Door Knockers, which will be exhibited later on in the year. Please also visited my updated website.

Grey

Frank Sinatra knew what he was talking about, "... A foggy day in London town, It had me low, And it had me down. I viewed the morning, With such alarm... "

I'm back in miserably grey England keeping my head firmly buried in my work to keep the creative juices flowing. Anyone from England knows exactly what I'm talking about. Why can't everyday be like this? Let's hope this Pantone forecast allows everyday to be a Mimosa day.

The Work

Flamingos & Obelisks

Le Mur Végétal

Patrick Blanc = amazing. The Parisian Botanist has radicalized the concept of garden design by inventing Le Mur Végétal (Vertical Garden). What the 104th St. Garden lacks is height as apartment blocks tower above it from either side. I hope to incorporate a sense of vertical dimension as well as introducing evergreen plants for an all-season permanence to the garden.

High Maintenance Similarities

Clockwise from Top Left: Château de Villandry (France), Frederiksborg Castle (Denmark), Washington Old Hall (United Kingdom) and Château de Versailles (France).

Keep Out!

The more I explore the garden at 104th St. and the community gardens I pass while I walk around the city, I can't help but notice the use of wire fencing around their perimeters and how unwelcoming they are. It may just be a cultural thing - decorative, albeit mock-Victorian, wrought iron fences are favored more than wire fencing common for industrial use in England. Throughout America, thousands of miles of wire fencing is used to line baseball sports fields, school grounds, parking lots and prison yards. While decorative wrought iron bars mask windows and doors in urban neighbourhoods - I look down at 104th St. Garden in my apartment through such a myriad of iron.

There is no detaching such an image with ideas of security: does the threat of danger lie behind the fence or is the fence keeping the threat out?

West 104th Street Garden

A Lot Of Possibilities

Host presents, A Lot Of Possibilities, the first show at Winter Space. Based around a formerly abandoned private garden lot that was taken over and then neglected by the City, it was the initiative from the locals to turn the space into a garden and create a common interest within the community. The exhibition explores the idea and experience of transformation and transplantation through various interior 'lots' from participating artists: Nanna Debois Buhl, Laura Fayer, Sandra Eula Lee, Sandra Mack-Valencia, Kenneth Rasmussen, Mark Inglis Taylor and Jonathan Velardi.

A Lot Of Possibilities opens February 7th and on Open Weekends thereafter from February 7th to March 29th, 11am-4pm. By appointment only on 917-549-7285

New Year New York

I am in New York for a month working on a project with the artist collective Host. I will be researching the work of Patricia Johanson from 1969 when she was asked to create a proposal from the editors of House & Garden, to produce landscape designs for a garden for the magazine. 146 drawings were produced and dealt with metaphysical relationships between nature and humans. I will propose a landscape design for the community garden, 104 St. Garden, that sits in between Central Park West and Manhattan Avenue in the Upper East Side. While living in the neighborhood I will be sourcing inspiration from this area, known as Manhattan Valley, with the views from local residents as well as my own transplantation into the community from England that will lend itself to ideas of a 'British Garden'.

I will continue to document my research and the work produced up to the exhibition opening on February 7th.

Happy New Year

So I haven't posted for a while but 2009 is a new beginning in so many ways, and I thought I'd start with a recommendation. Windsor Castle has been the source of a mountain of inspiration - it is the world's oldest and largest working castle and houses England's finest examples of Baroque style in the State Apartments, thanks to King George IV. Over its 1000-year history a story lies behind every door, painting and clock ranging from Edwardian to Victorian, to 21-st Century eras. The castle is an incredible place in itself, but walks throughout Windsor Great Park are equally breathtaking. Only 20 miles away from London it is my first 'must-do' for 2009.

Happy New Year!