Art, Design & the Environment
Tulip Time
I love the absolute excess of masses and masses of tulips – their exuberance, their riot of color. On the Upper West Side there’s a lovely community garden that’s nestled among tall buildings https://www.westsidecommunitygarden.org/. Here residents tend a pocket garden that runs between 89th and 90th streets between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. The garden is…
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Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest
Tucked into Madison Square Park is an unexpected installation. At first it strikes one as curious – odd leafless trees in a cluster, framed by the Manhattan skyline. This is a statement piece by Mia Lin, an extraordinary way of making climate change visible. She has literally brought a dying forest to the city, so…
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The Artistic World of Landscape/Waterscape Photographer Gary Kuehn
Nature’s beauty inspires my writing, as does art that takes nature as its subject. I’m interested in the ways a focus on landscape and water plays out for painters and photographers. Recently I updated my website and wanted images that reflect my writing, in particular, the world of Montauk, Long Island, where my most recent…
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Snug Harbor’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden, a Model of Urban Garden Design
The Chinese Scholar’s Garden on Staten Island is a tiny gem, one of the most beautifully designed gardens I’ve ever seen. Tucked away on the grounds of Snug Harbor museum, a short bus ride from the ferry terminal to Manhattan, it is one of only two classical Chinese gardens in the U.S. The garden took…
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Visiting the High Line
The High Line, which began as a quirky idea for an urban park, has morphed into one of New York City’s tourist attractions, a 1.5 mile long greenway with over 500 species of plants and trees. It’s touted as a stunning example of a creative repurposing of unwanted infrastructure– in this case, elevated train tracks…
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Alexis Rockman’s Art: An Environmental Call to Action
Alexis Rockman’s art is fascinating. I love how his paintings look—vivid, colorful, eye-popping. They are not only gorgeous visually, but also serve as a call to action. For instance, his recent “The Great Lakes Cycle,” have been described as “natural-history psychedelia” https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/alexis_rockman.html. This recent series explores the geographical, physical, and ecological changes of the Great Lakes…
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Stowe Landscape Garden, Buckinghamshire, England
I’ve always been in love with gardens. I grew up in what were called garden apartments, in a complex called Glen Oaks, in the area of Queens known as Kew Gardens. But although there were oaks, there were no glens and no gardens to be seen. I loved trees, plants, and flowers from an early…
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