Tag Archives: swiss alps

LandArt2014 Gletscherschlucht

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French LandArt2014 Entry captures from where our roots come and to where our roots go…

French LandArt2014 Entry captures from where our roots come and to where our roots go…

 

On my way to the Gletscherschlucht, between the Eiger and the Shreckhorn, I found in the forest the existing remnants of Grindelwald’s LandArt 2014.

LandArt2014 asks the artists to find their raw materials in the adjacent forest itself.  Then the art goes through the transitional cycles of time and decomposition.  Some of the 14 entries had already merged with the forest.  Others were still visible.  I liked the one above by a team from France.

Pascal Imhof has produced an HD Virtual Reality of the French entry–and from this link you can see VRs of all LandArt2014 entries.

These are the people responsible for the French LandArt 2014 Entry.

These are the people responsible for the French LandArt 2014 Entry.

The Promise?

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…in the spring…evergreen or deciduous?

…in the spring…evergreen or deciduous?

How often have you hoped a promise would be fulfilled?

And, just what are all those connotations surrounding the word–promise–all the aura–all the magic?

Today as I looked at the above image, in real life, I was convinced that the promise of spring had been fulfilled–entrancingly fulfilled.

I looked and looked–the greens dark, the greens alive–then I remembered the questions about plants and design–evergreen or deciduous?

Lawns or Meadows…

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Mini-meadow in the lawn--heart pounding variety--spring promise in early April.

Mini-meadow in the lawn–heart pounding variety–spring promise in early April.

Or, both and…

All my life I have seen cool weather grasses from Chicago to Detroit to Boston to the UK to Belgium; but I have never seen like I see in these photos– the Thun and Brienz lakes area of Switzerland.

Everyone’s house has a very small yard which usually includes a vegetable garden, fruit tree or two, flower garden and a flat trimmed lawn area.

In the spring the usually flat trimmed lawn area reveals this just opening array of wild flowers–kind of mini-meadow like.

People cut around these bouquets of wild flowers until the flowering is finished, then the lawns are fully cut.

Next year the wild flowers return.  Both lawns and meadows, as I see it.

Anybody seen something similar?

Joy of Spring 01

Cool season grass, early April in northern hemisphere following a steadily mild winter.

…on a landscape journey…

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Winter path

On a path within a landscape journey…and up ahead, around the corner…

Nobody truly knows just what may be around the next corner…can’t see, can’t hear, don’t know…such are our limitations.

Friday, 24Jan2014, I was, on foot, taking a landscape journey–a split second of which is in the above photograph.

As I took the photo, I thought just as we do not know what lies around the next corner at anytime, we do not know either the time of death or thereafter…but we put the best shine on it.

So I took the photograph, smiled and continued walking.

It was beautiful on the day…and the memories still are beautiful!

Landscapeyness

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I like the essential lightness in this word:  landscapeyness.

In real life, I find lightness both in landscapes and also in gardens. Among their many aspects, I like them for their landscapeyness.

Landscapes and gardens–this ultimate pair of two syllable words–each carrying an immeasurable gravitas buried within the burls of all human civilizations–each twisting and turning through the world’s cultures and around and through the time lines of human history–twisting and turning, forming and reforming, always in a deep harmony.

Can landscapeyness and deep harmony co-exist? Of course!  Look at these images brimming with landscapeyness and deep harmony.

These images are SchnerenSchnit (German). SchnerenSchnit is scissors cut–the art and craft of cutting paper.  It has been practiced in Swiss mountain villages before modern media, and continues on in some places still today.  I have included these images of ScherenSchnit because they demonstrate the skeins, the threads, the cellulose, that connect and combine landscapeyness and deep harmony into an almost transcendental relationship between people and plants, gardens and landscapes.

Shelter, water, work, nurture, people, craft, landscape…

Shelter, water, work, nurture, people, craft, landscape…

Forest, animals, people, nurture, rest, music, landscape…

Forest, animals, people, nurture, rest, music, landscape…

Flowers, forest, animals, children, parents, play, nurture, landscape…

Flowers, forest, animals, children, parents, play, nurture, landscape…

Flowers, forest, family, shelter, animals, people, nurture, landscape…

Flowers, forest, family, shelter, animals, people, nurture, landscape…

The tree of life…

The tree of life…

Now why did we move to the city?  What are we missing in the city?

Mysteries to solve…

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Interlaken, Switzerland, in the Hohematte, looking East

Interlaken, Switzerland, in the Hohematte, looking East

Inspirational mountains…settled by humans longer than the written record…

Nevertheless the human landmark for more than eight hundred years in this inspirational landscape is a tribute to God.  This piece of land and the human shelters built there still, today in 2013, remind all of the human existential questions that stir in the landscape…mysteries to solve.

Crystal Vision, Beta Edition, 26Sep2013

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Crystal Vision is a landscape story.  It is a novella, literary fiction.

The past reaches for today

The past reaches for today

In Crystal Vision, George Moleson, an emerging professional, leaves his landscape architecture roots in Southern California, to build his international career, becoming a key person on a huge new town project located just near the Tropic of Cancer, on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia.

After six cosseted years on that project, a quick succession of personal and professional events batter George.  They untether him; and he embarks into the labyrinthine mists of landscapes…landscapes the nature of he had never ever imagined.

Read Crystal Vision preface and the ten Episodes’ summaries.

From Bern to Bernese Oberlands Jungfrau Region

From Bern to Bernese Oberlands Jungfrau Region

Mountains, Plants, Water, Sky

Mountains, Plants, Water, Sky

Humans in the Mountains

Humans in the Mountains

Then please tell me if you like it or have any questions about it.

Thank you for your time and interest in the landscape.

Crystal Vision and Labyrinthine Mists

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As I move toward the completion of my second landscape story, Crystal Vision, I have updated the novella’s story line.

Labyrinthine Mists

Labyrinthine Mists is the landscape through which the main character moves.

Geo was from LA.  He was a young and successful landscape architect; yet he sensed…an unease.  He took an offer to work in Saudi Arabia, an excellent challenge where he would have exponentially larger responsibilities.

During his six years on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia, his professional and social life evolved inside a bubble, a cultural bubble protecting him from uncertainty…until…the bubble burst.

He lost his tether to ‘reality’ and began a blind journey into a landscape labyrinth.  A labyrinth by definition does not have an end; but Geo sensed…an obligation and something important to find.  And so, he embarked upon an exploration of labyrinthine landscapes he had never before imagined.