After The Rapture The Weeding

There is a wonderful Zen Koan that goes "Before Zen, trees are trees and mountains are mountains, During Zen, trees are pillars of wisdom and mountains are thrones of spirits, After Zen, trees are trees and mountains are mountains," well here it's back to the weeding. The studio garden was inspired by my memories of my granny's garden. We would all pile into the car, and drive down to the Townships. It was usually quite an adventure as my Dad loved garages and conveniently the car would break down. Don't think it was quite as much fun for my Mum who had to keep 5 unruly children, a dog and a cat occupied as the men discussed car mechanics. Gran's was paradise and my favourite part was her rock garden. It had staircases winding up and down and wonderful places to hide. It was a magical place and when we rebuilt our studios, digging down 13 feet, I knew what I wanted to do with the slope that would now face our studios. Re-create that magic of childhood. So this is what you see when you walk out of my studio. You are facing south but the garden faces north which has presented a few challenges. The grassy area is actually a road so that we can bring a truck in to load work going off to exhibition. A great idea but we both seem to have our shows in early spring when there is still feet of snow. Makes a great place to sit though.

Studio garden looking east and west