Landscape with Chair and Bench

A patch of dirt, a place to sit, a structure over one's head. Do these not constitute a garden? Most certainly, I say.

Perhaps it has become a cliche these days to opine that a garden is a state of mind. Yet here it is - an elegant pergola rests partially on a sawhorse and a chair. The chair seems to have been upended for the nonce, but benches sing with the colors of growth, and the scent of earthy mulch twitches the senses. Overhead floods and spots deconstruct into intriguing shadows on the ground.

All this, in the midst of a wintry month, is nothing if not a welcome sight.



Jim Osman's installation is on exhibit at the Brooklyn campus of the Long Island University Humanities Gallery (first floor Humanities Building, gallery hours 9-6,) till the end of February.
http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/depts/art/pages/humanities_gallery.htm

Mulch Pow(d)er

Some people see "winter wonderland," and yes, it is, sort of - a miniature urban one - I will not deny it.

But I see mulch.


The powder of snow is the perfect mulch for all that is percolating beneath its white blanket. And fortunately back here where only the dog - a pug - mostly trudges, the blanket stays mostly white a bit longer than what falls on the streets of the city.