Steve Tobin In The 90s

Steve Tobin in the 90's
Steve often uses materials from abandoned industrial sites. The seeds of the pinecone are paddles that churn molten iron at the Bethlehem steel mills.
Steve Tobin in the 90's
The core is the inner casing of a curved pipe.
Steve Tobin in the 90's
One of a few narrative works that Steve made in the 90s, the untitled “creature” stands atop a life-size tortoise and scampers ahead of a trailing lawn tractor tire—all cast in bronze. He’s made up of human legs and feet, a deer’s ribcage and head, connected by a human spinal column, also bronze casts. Even the crown or cap on his head consists of tiny individual casts of turtle fry, all spot welded together. Spectacular piece.
Steve Tobin in the 90's
Art grows on me, and this earliest of Steve’s bronze roots does especially. The realistic form, proportion, size, proximity to our field oak and rust color evoke elegiac feelings.
Steve Tobin in the 90's
 

Steve Tobin in the 90's

‘Syntax’, at left, consists of thousands of metal letters and numbers from an old sign and print shop that had gone out of business. There are even a few symbols such as # and $ and %. The effect is a “head” full of the elements of meaning. The upper half features a labyrinthine vortex that reminds me of the finale in Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. A favorite with guests over the last three months, its blue-green color shifts throughout the day and it resembles topiary. On the right is the southeast corner tip of the Happiness Garden, with Aster oblongifolius ‘Raydon’s Favorite’ in bloom.
Steve Tobin in the 90's
Part of what inspired Steve to make the “creature”.

Garden Food for Thought

When our nation faces a recession, it becomes receptive to the notion of gardening for both economic benefit and pleasure.  Imagine new vegetable gardens across the countrysides, in the suburbs and patched throughout the cities.  As we face food price hikes—despite relief in gas prices—and cancel big-ticket purchases and investments, we turn to our gardens for comfort and sustenance.  I mentioned in “Square Feet“, that small houses, such as bungalows, are popular again.  So, too, extended garden seasons are back, along with cold frames and staggered sowings.  Frugality and sober-mindedness are again in fashion. Thrift is a growing trend and health is huge.  However, I, for one, still have a long way to go.

For example, I’m at two servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day, rather than the five recommended by the USDA—less than half.  Yet the USDA just reported that consumers spend 8 1/2 cents of every food dollar on fresh fruits and vegetables. What do the other 91 1/2 cents buy?  Here’s a clue:  chicken and turkey get 2 1/3 cents.  In other words, processed food eats probably 80% of the US consumer food dollars.  No wonder there’s a sharp rise in diet-related disease.  Over-consumption of processed food results in obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.  The USDA is right to be concerned—these figures are stunning.  According to a Harvard study conducted back in the 1960s, caloric intake is the second greatest cause of death, after the passage of time.  The point is to maintain a balance.  Just as one eats in order to live, overeating is fatal.

I cannot think of a better time than today to be a gardener.  Health, exercise (stretching like a flower), taste (no question), savings and—last but not least—inspiration to the next generation. Kids eat the vegetables their parents or grandparents grow, first out of respect, then out of pleasure and in their adult years out of habit and, ultimately, out of gratitude.

Thus, we shall snap a 75 year record of consuming too much refined and processed food.

Cool Fall at Fordhook

Cool Fall at Fordhook - Click to enlarge

In ‘Second Summer‘ I showed a few fine blooming garden beds still in excellent shape in late October.  A freak snowstorm occurred on Tuesday, October 28th.  However, we continued to enjoy a long, beautiful, cool autumn here at Fordhook.  Summer’s “second number” is almost 10 weeks long.  The only big differences are the poignancy of the shortening days and the sweater or coat needed.  I spend more time in the fall gardens than in the summer ones.

Everyone says that their gardens are “done” around Labor Day, and begin speaking of them in the past tense.  I do, too, after a career spent with annuals, most of which are of tropical origin and sputter out by early September in Illinois.  Also, while folks are clearing out and closing up their gardens, they’re planning for spring and planting bulbs.  In other words, living outside the moment.  Of course, chores are essential in fall, as weeding and watering in July and August.  But fall is a complete garden season, as loaded with interesting growth as spring or summer.  With planning, autumn can be full of flowers from staggered and late sowings and plantings, and one can have much to enjoy while pulling, raking and covering.

Oku, Shintani, Finnerty Art

Densaburo Oku art
The sculptor Densaburo Oku, or “Dense” or “Mr. Oku”, in his workshop. He had already a distinguished career in Japan before coming to the US twenty years ago. He casts, molds and blows glass and works metal.
Densaburo Oku art
We have ten fish by Densaburo Oku. The metal combines found and reworked parts, and the glass is colored and cast. We were attracted to the symbol of the fish skeletons, due to the Native American use of fish guts for fertilizer.
Densaburo Oku art
This one has a special color to the bones. Note his use in the spinal column of glass insulators for the vertebrae.
Densaburo Oku art
The first to come with small cast glass eyes.
Densaburo Oku art
They swim around in the Happiness Garden.
Densaburo Oku art
Densaburo Oku art
The painted metal is especially nice in this one.
Densaburo Oku art
Over 6 feet tall, this is our first fish, done in black glass. The massive head is always buried in fall leaves.
Daisuke Shintani art
Daisuke Shintani has made a large series of water forms. The leaf is an actual leaf cast in bronze and the drop is a combination of cast and blown glass.
Daisuke Shintani art
Our first work of art here at Fordhook was this tall three-branched tree (10 feet) of black iron with cast and blown glass eyes. I fell in love with it because it was the first time I noticed a “plant” noticing me.
Eric Finnerty art- Click to Enlarge
Bronze sculpture of the titaness Rhea who was the mother of Zeus, the first god in Greek religion. Eric Finnerty casts plant parts separately—in this case fern fronds for the face and bust, deciduous tree leaves for the hair, and an unidentified woodland orchid behind her right ear—and then works and welds them together, piece by piece. The model, much as the Greeks and Romans often used “foreign” captives for their sculptures, is Afro-Asian. One of a series.
Eric Finnerty art
Another with different elements, a daisy in her left ear and mushrooms sprouting off her shoulder and near her nape—all cast in bronze.
Eric Finnerty art
My favorite is Rhea made up of nasturtium leaves with the little stems still attached and sticking out. The effect is wonderfully mysterious, with large leaves for the hair and added topknot ponytail. She was the titaness or humanoid supreme spirit of fertility. Her husband was Chronos, the titan of time. The two of them emerged from the sky, Uranus, and the earth, Gaea—the actual things themselves.

Second Summer

Photos by Mary Kliwinski
Second Summer
View of Dahlia Research Trials
Second Summer
Research Director Grace Romero
Second Summer
2001 Heronswood Garden at Fordhook, renamed Carolina Garden for my mother.
Second Summer
Second Summer
Memorial for my mother, Caroline Vivian Ball.
Second Summer

Second Summer

Second Summer

Second Summer

Second Summer

Second Summer

Second Summer

Partial view of new Heronswood Gardens
Second Summer
Upper Pond
Second Summer
Lower Pond – the total planted area at Fordhook Farm in 2009 will be about 12 acres.
Second Summer
The Main House. Note the tall holly on the right.
Second Summer
Dahlias in Happiness Garden
Second Summer
Dahlias at Main House
Second Summer
Partial view of southwest side of Happiness Garden
Second Summer

Second Summer

Second Summer

Springhouse entrance with Seed House in back.
Second Summer
Seed House – Windows caught enough light in the fall that the older employees, who’d earned sit-down jobs cleaning and sorting seed, could see. Due to the flammable dust created continuously by the work (think of cotton seed heads), no artificial light was allowed. The metal roof is new—the slate under the belfry is original and covered the roof until 2005, when it became too expensive to maintain. The Seed House is used now for storage and still needs some work inside.

New Butterflies & Art

New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
New Butterfly & Art
Photo by Mary Kliwinski

Welcome to The Garden Party

We published a first version of this light-hearted piece in early 1996 in our old ‘Burpee Home Gardener’ magazine.  However, I announced later that I was actually forming the Garden Party—and I did!  The Philadelphia Inquirer covered it and CBS radio interviewed me “on the street” in Chicago, where I attended a few small rallies for various independents doing a much better job.  We thought of ourselves as budding Ron Paul types without the charm and experience.  (He’s Pennsylvania-bred with a rural, can-do spunkiness found in the people from the hills and mountains across the state.)  It didn’t get off the ground, so to speak.  Nevertheless, I dream of a sea of gardeners in Wellingtons and floppy hats descending on D.C.

 

 
Welcome to the Garden Party
By George Ball
 

As Election Day nears, I issue an appeal to my fellow gardeners: make yourself heard. Leave off your harvesting, raking and mulching for a minute and broadcast, not just your spring bulbs, but your beliefs.

There are approximately 78 million gardeners in the United States – a number greater than either major political party. It is time we combined forces to effect change outside of the garden.  I have a name for this new political force: the Garden Party.  If I were to promote an ideal man or woman for public service, I would begin with the qualities the founding fathers—farmers and planters all—pertinent, pragmatic, observant and humble.  Among others, these are the key ingredients of a successful gardener.

In this cacophonous culture, gardeners are conspicuously quiet – too quiet. They are not the rabble-raising sort. Oh, gardeners may disagree among themselves about the relative merits of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, or differ over starting from seeds or transplants. I know a celebrated gardening writer who will have nothing to do with purple flowers; there, alas, her militancy ends.

You don’t see politicians laboring in their garden for photo ops, they’re too busy jogging, playing golf or duck hunting—foreplay compared to dividing perennials or digging potatoes. Gardeners have no high-paid K-Street lobbyists; politicians blithely ignore them. Not for them the argy-bargy of the Sunday morning talk show circuit. You don’t hear them braying on talk radio or read their soil-smudged
vituperative letters to the editor. Gardeners are still the Silent Majority.

So where are the gardeners? Why are they so quiet? Easy: they are in their gardens. They are too interested to become a special interest group. Lobbying is distasteful to gardeners as, by definition, it requires being indoors. But when a group is as conspicuously quiet as America’s gardeners, it makes great sense to listen to them. 

We are, after all, a nation of gardens. Rather than isolated spots in the landscape, let’s view the country as a rump republic of gardens, partitioned by buildings, roads and forest. The Great American Garden stretches from sea to sea, comprised of gardens big and bold, or modest and demure—and some as small as a window box.  In the garden contradictory points of view converge. In the Great American Garden the capitalist and the socialist, the laissez-faire and the doctrinaire, the Christian and the pagan can find common ground. They have to. For in the garden, extremes and imbalance of any kind will reap a bitter harvest.

Here are the essential traits of the successful gardener that our country’s policymakers might do well to emulate, particularly as we approach the presidential election.

Down to earth – Gardeners must first of all be pragmatic, squarely focused on facts and events rather than abstract ideas. In the garden, experience shows, and grows.

Planning – A skillful gardener is a good planner. I have rarely seen a beautiful or productive garden that was not thought out well in advance. Gardeners take the long view.

Love of nature – Gardeners share an abiding love of plants and nature. They are exquisitely attuned to the climate and soil conditions. Politicians intimately connected to nature would devise environmental policies that reflect this. Our greatest leader in this regard was Theodore Roosevelt.

Expediency – Decisiveness is second nature to a gardener. Gardeners know when to drop everything else and tend to the problem at hand. Knowing what to do is useless if you fail to respond at the right moment.

Observant – The best gardener keeps a very close eye on plants, soil, temperature, sky, tools, children, bugs, pets – and predators.

Adaptable – Flexibility is the essence of diplomacy, and indispensable to a successful, experienced gardener. It requires a lot of careful trial and error before you arrive at the solution.

Resourceful – In the garden, we often lack the tools we need, forcing us to improvise.  Our leaders are frequently called upon to do things beyond their presumed capacities, and the best ones show that they had them all along.

Humility – The word “humility” derives from “humus”. As a gardener, you can’t do it all by yourself. Knowledgeable, experienced people will help you just for the asking.  Politics, like gardening, is a humbling experience; awareness of one’s limits is key to long-term survival.

The Bible, Oscar Wilde observed, begins in the garden and ends in Revelations. This is certain: if politicians adopt the habits and perspective of the successful gardener, it will be a revelation.
Join us.

 

 

Beeway

Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Bee- Click to Enlarge
Photo by Mary Kliwinski

Butterfly Hill

Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
And above Butterfly Hill…

Butterfly
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
… a heron!

Hummingbird Alley

Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski
Hummingbird
Photo by Mary Kliwinski