Calling All Artists

Hope the title grabbed your attention. I program the activities and events at the Gardens and have often thought of ways that visitors to share their experiences at the Gardens with us and with others.

I'd like your input about this concept--a "exhibition" of the ways the Walled Garden have inspired people's creative side. Due to my engineering background I missed out on a liberal arts education so I've been filling that void by studying art and literary criticism on my own. Today I finished reading The Art of Description by Mark Doty and it caused me to wonder how the Gardens have inspired people's creative side.

In the past we've had had mini art shows ("Old Westbury Gardens--An Inspiration to Artists") of paintings which featured recognizable Garden features (e.g., paintings of Westbury House, the Thatched Cottage, etc.) but perhaps we could expand this to include other creative forms of expression--poems, essays, music, photographs, even videos or clothing (we recently had a photo shoot of swimwear the design of which was inspired by the Gardens). Perhaps to start small (or big) the exhibiton could focus on the Walled Garden. There are so many aspects of this garden that could be explored: the juxtoposition of the hardscape with the plants--the incorporation of plants from Asia, the wisteria, the peonies, etc., with a Western European garden; the water features; the optical illusion of the circles created by the "u-s" of the brick wall behind the pergola and the pergola's arches; garden's seasonal changes.

Your comments/thoughts are needed and welcomed...you can note them below or send them to phunchak@oldwestburygardens.org