A Garden Gallery: The Plants, Art, and Hardscape of Little and Lewis
This is a beautiful book! If you are looking for inspiration and both visual and literary joy, you will find it here. Having visited the now famous garden of George Little and David Lewis on Bainbridge Island, Washington, I knew of the garden's uniqueness. These two men have an uncanny knack for creating magical spaces, but I was unprepared for the sheer power of this book to bring it all back so clearly with such organized detail. If you can't travel there, this is the next best thing.
When you visit the garden you are immediately aware of both artistic and sensory details. Colors, sounds and forms bath you in a comforting blanket. Both Little and Lewis speak the language of artists who embrace and see beauty all around them. You come away from the garden flooded with thoughts and a bit overwhelmed, not only by the boldness of the plants, but by the beauty of the details.
I came away from this book with a renewed interest in exploring the very philosophy of beauty itself. 'A Garden Gallery' will let everyone experience and understand what a truly beautiful garden is... people relating to spaces in very personal ways.True beauty can bring both joyous giddiness as well as spiritual serenity. It is a state of mind. A garden that can illicit joy and wonderment, and that pulls at the beholder's mind, connecting past memories with present sensory feedback, will be remembered and loved. There is a wonderful rhythm to the book as David and George alternately discuss their philosophies, histories, methods of gardening and creating unique sculpture, water features and plant combinations.
Barbara Denk's photographs are drop-dead gorgeous, providing the perfect counterpoint to a lively dialogue. Her photography, much like the art and garden spaces created by Little and Lewis, allows us to see what the concept of beauty really is...something that let's each individual's mind enter into a special place where, as Ketzel Levine writes in the Foreword, "time stands still and the senses are allowed to wander". This opens us up to new possibilities.
There is a practical stuff here too....from tips on using color to making unusual water features. Both David and George make no excuses for playing the zonal denial game and offer up lists of their favorite tropical plants, along with ideas on how best to site your favorite object d'art.
As someone once said" A good garden designer..." is part historian, horticulturalist, poet, sculptor, writer, musician, philosopher, and painter" They are all of these.
Garden Gallery. The Plants, Art, and Hardscape of Little and Lewis by George Little and David Lewis
192 pages, 140 color photos
ISBN 0-88192-672-8
$29.95 U.S.Published by : Timber Press, Feb. 2005