The art becomes a garden

Mother Nature, embraced by Nature

I was out in my garden this morning in the overcast light, mesmerized by the flowers and the colors and how lush everything looks on a cool, calm, summer morning, and I came at last to my only plaster sculpture.

I carved this Nature figure in a sculpture class I took in the winter of 2005, as part of my excuse to retire to do only art. When I arrived at my new home in Oregon, I didn't have a garden as such, just a mishmash of jungle, one camellia and some rhodies, and patches of aggressive groundcovers, so I set it on top of the picnic table. Within a year the birds had taken to landing on it and pecking the top of her head. I thought, "Critics. Hmph," and knew I couldn't do anything about it, so I just left it there.

Now, ten years later, I see that it has become something else entirely, and rather than demeaned by the conscious reworking by the birds, I consider it to be enhanced, both by the unknown service it has provided them, and the discriminating colony of algae that now inhabits its tiny crevices and distress scars from the birds and the weather. Here is Mother Nature in her permanent "in progress" state.

I think it's time to find it a place of honor in the garden that has taken form around it.