Inspiration:
Saint-Amand Landscape Design explores the intersection of the rigorous with the unbounded -
The call to action is one better described by former professor and author John Felstiner in, “Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Field Guide to Nature Poems.”*
John Felstiner forges, “Swamped by immense events – markets, movies, Internet, the world’s alarms – we could do with poetry’s enlivened touch for nature’s common surprises. If poems touch upon our humanness, can they quicken awareness and bolster respect for this ravaged resilient earth we are born in?” (Felstiner, 2009*)
The analogy between landscape design and poetry is two-fold: 1) a meticulous process of working and 2) cathartic engagement with the human psyche.
Design with the land employs nature as Felstiner posits the same for poetry, “Thoreau’s hope for “a poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service. [To this end], he would need ingrained measured speech with natural verse.” (Felstiner, 2009*)
* Felstiner, John. Can Poetry Save the Earth?: A Field Guide to Nature Poems Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2009
“The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow stronger.”
The Gardens of Russell Page
It is impossible to deny Russell Page as a preeminent influence on the meticulous garden survey and planning that enables an elevated experience of place.
The image below encapsulates a theme component to Page’s work, achieved at Villa Silvio Pellico:
"A garden is not just a garden. A garden is a way of achieving harmony."
The image is a snapshot from the NOWNESS film on Villa Silvio Pellico by Lee C. Womack.
dance
Choreography of space and time also shapes garden design.
The video below, titled Лазер (Laser) narrates a dance punctured with darkness, light, and sound. It is a compelling story of movement and interval that can be interpreted across media.
For example in the landscape, phases of water as it gathers and travels across textured surfaces is a form of dance.
The film is directed by Tarik Abdel-Gawad and danced by Maria Kochetkova.
The inventive atmospheres of leila menchari
Leila Menchari is revered for her mastery of transportive illusion for Hermès. She excelled at translating scale and motif into atmospheric scenes.
In a similar fashion, landscapes at any scale benefit from an adept distillation of concept into abbreviated elements.
The photo below features an image of Vitrine Faubourg Saint-Honor, 1998, Courtesy of Hermès
The MAGNIFICENT EARTH
Design with the land begins with a reverence for the natural environment.
The StA LLC collage below features lichen studies by Dr. Werner Klinkhardt along with a ‘Plate from A Catalogue of the Lepidopterous Insects in the Museum of the Hon. East-India Company’. The composition articulates components of the vital energetic exchange that defines the earth.
Landscape Design succeeds when it bolsters the robust nature of this dynamic system.
