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The gateway to the garden
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Ceramic bulbs ready to grow!
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SPEAKER PROGRAM |
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JANUARY 11,2012 |
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MARCIA DONAHUE
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Artist and Gardener |
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PLANTING SCULPTURE,
SCULPTING PLANTS
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Marcia Donahue thinks that to garden is to sculpt. The gardener collaborates with nature hoping to produce a site specific sculpture, a living tapestry, that is kinetic, multidimensional, personally expressive and even profoundly moving. A garden of this sort can be a site for sculpture, inspire sculpture and be a sculpture. She has been working in this manner in her garden in Berkeley for 33 years. |
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Her work is in many public and private collections including San Francisco Chinatown and Chanticleer, a public pleasure garden in Pennsylvania. It has been published in books, including New California Garden Design by Zahid Sardar and Marion Brenner and magazines including Pacific Horticulture, Fine Gardening, Garden Design and Gardens Illustrated.
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She collaborates with garden designers Brandon Tyson, Cevan Forristt and Davis Dalbok, contributing sculptural bling to their brilliant designs. Much of her work is inspired by plants and she loves to make works that fit in so well to their gardens as to seem endemic. Placing sculpture is as thoughtful a project as placing a plant. |
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Her garden is open to anyone who is interested on Sunday afternoons. |
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Commentary on January Speaker by Mark Mcabe
If this month’s speaker looked familiar, then you’ve been here awhile. Marcia Donahue, Berkeley artist and gardener, greeted our audience by reminding us that she spoke to WHS about twenty years ago. “Planting Sculpture, Sculpting Plants” is a work in progress – and this artist has been working – and playing – in many gardens for some time.
Marcia stated that her work, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, is inspired by plants. We were treated to a wide array of slides, such as sculptured rock in Chinatown, San Francisco, Angkor Wat Rock Sculpture Face in Berkeley and Peckerwood Garden in Texas. We saw serpentine sculptures, ceramics, spiraled plants and “bottle” trees. We were treated to bowling ball “mulch,” ceramic “eyes,” and a “knitter” with real spider web yarn.
While all of this seems a bit incongruous, I came away with the impression that there is a tremendous amount of thought, work (and yes, money) that is invested to make these creations relevant. Our speaker, while admitting to being attracted by the garden of absurdity and spherical shapes, seems to pull it off with a careful balance of endemic placement, kinetics and humor. She’s not alone either, working with some top name designers and clients desiring the unusual and expressive.
Marica Donahue’s garden in Berkeley (where else?) is open to all interested parties on Sunday afternoons. A visit to her garden sounds more like an adventure than the proverbial walk down the primrose path. Anyone interested?
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