Art by Any Other Name

I think I fell in love last week with W. Gary Smith. He’s a garden designer and in one short hour-long presentation – his keynote address at the 26^th Annual Davidson Horticultural Symposium – he expressed everything I hold as truth about gardening and by extraction, life itself.

I’ve been to a ton of garden lectures and frankly (and I cross myself as I say this) I could not care less about the MOST IMPROVED PLANT OF THE YEAR or the VERY LAST WORD IN DAY LILIES or TEN PLANTS YOU SIMPLY MUST HAVE IN YOUR GARDEN. Who cares? They live, they die, and they get replaced. I don’t need to know their Latin names or the latest cultivar. I like hostas – I just don’t need to COLLECT hostas (or roses, or day lilies). Does this make me a bad gardener or worse, an unworthy gardener? Should I drop my memberships in Perennial Society, National Garden Conservation League, or the Monroe County Garden Society to make room for someone who is more attuned to the soil?

There’s one major problem with that (in my mind at least): THEY NEED ME because I AM A DISCIPLE OF W. GARY SMITH. He preaches the gospel of design. He explains why certain shapes and patterns – repeated mysteriously and omni-presently in nature – please the human eye and lift the soul. He illustrated nine basic patterns in his presentation with exquisitely chosen words and pictures. The message was simple enough for the beginner gardener to grasp but old-timers were nodding with sudden insight as Smith spoke.

And if all that isn’t enough to make my heart flutter (or is that the by-pass surgery talking?), I learned a new word: NUMINOUS. An adjective that means filled with a sense of supernatural presence, spiritually elevated, sublime.

These are the reasons scientists everywhere need people like me – and Smith – and artists – and writers, musicians and day dreamers. Life is much more interesting when you squint your eyes, look for the patterns and discover the numinous spaces.

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Here is an installation that defies category: is it art or gardening? By any measure, it is creative and NUMINOUS. It’s the labor (and yard) of Robin and David Wilgus. David is an illustrator/artist by day but at night, he must be a major scavenger. The fence across the front of his house is fairly new; I saw it first last year when it was nearly pristine. In the intervening months, it’s sprouted curly iron debris (Wilgus sees this as “growing vines.”)

That construction at the back of the Wilgus house is an outdoor room. It glitters, shimmers, and is a real-brought-to-life version of “can you spy….?” Or “find 32 white doorknobs” or whatever your experience is with that game. He calls it the patio. I call it a cathedral.