WaterShapes
One of the fascinating things about working with the different types of clients we encounter as watershapers is that we can never really know what to expect. If my years of experience have taught me anything, it's that perception is often very different from reality. Instead, what I find is that the basic assumptions we might be inclined to make about different "categories" of clients are, often as not, completely confounded by the uniqueness of every situation. As a result, working effectively across a range of project types and client economic levels means being able to withhold judgment or at the very least avoid
One of the fascinating things about working with the different types of clients we encounter as watershapers is that we can never really know what to expect. If my years of experience have taught me anything, it's that perception is often very different from reality. Instead, what I find is that the basic assumptions we might be inclined to make about different "categories" of clients are, often as not, completely confounded by the uniqueness of every situation. As a result, working effectively across a range of project types and client economic levels means being able to withhold judgment or at the very least avoid
It is with complete and utter candor that I must point out a significant error on my part. In our June 2007 issue, we mistakenly ran several photos with
It is with complete and utter candor that I must point out a significant error on my part. In our June 2007 issue, we mistakenly ran several photos with
My love of nature started with a rock collection I had as a child: My fascination with the simple beauty of those small pieces of stone hit me early in life and never left. Several years later, my outlook was dramatically expanded when a wealthy uncle of mine paid to have a formal Japanese garden built for his home in Boulder, Colo. Ever since, I've had a profound appreciation of archetypal Japanese gardens and the way they celebrate nature through landforms, rocks, plants and water. By the time I was in high school, I had already decided that my career was going to involve working outdoors, and from that time forward, my prime interest was in bringing the techniques and disciplines of Japanese gardens into the greater American landscape both where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. For 30 years now, I've worked as a landscape artist in that region - for 15 years in Portland and for the last 15 in Eugene, Ore. Although many of my designs are not what you could describe as "Japanese gardens" per se, everything I do is informed and influenced by those traditions. I bear no grudge of any sort against the beauty of gardens in the Western European tradition, but to my mind, there's nothing in landscape design that harmonizes more seamlessly with nature than
My love of nature started with a rock collection I had as a child: My fascination with the simple beauty of those small pieces of stone hit me early in life and never left. Several years later, my outlook was dramatically expanded when a wealthy uncle of mine paid to have a formal Japanese garden built for his home in Boulder, Colo. Ever since, I've had a profound appreciation of archetypal Japanese gardens and the way they celebrate nature through landforms, rocks, plants and water. By the time I was in high school, I had already decided that my career was going to involve working outdoors, and from that time forward, my prime interest was in bringing the techniques and disciplines of Japanese gardens into the greater American landscape both where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. For 30 years now, I've worked as a landscape artist in that region - for 15 years in Portland and for the last 15 in Eugene, Ore. Although many of my designs are not what you could describe as "Japanese gardens" per se, everything I do is informed and influenced by those traditions. I bear no grudge of any sort against the beauty of gardens in the Western European tradition, but to my mind, there's nothing in landscape design that harmonizes more seamlessly with nature than
It's true for any subject that it's basically impossible to teach and learn about a topic unless there's a shared set of terms that everyone understands and can agree about what they mean. I've thought about that fact a lot in developing a course for university students about watershaping, or what I'm most often calling "water architecture" these days. With watershaping as a subject, that sounds simple enough. After all, we all know the meaning of "swimming pool," "fountain" and "pond." Or do we? I'm not so sure anymore. When I started breaking down our vocabulary for classroom use, I quickly recognized that the meanings of the words we use are anything but clear. Indeed, the more I dug into this seemingly simple phase of curriculum development, the murkier things became.The difficulty I ran into was this: Once I moved past the most rudimentary sets of terms and definitions and looked closely at the language we use to describe what we produce, it became painfully obvious to me that
It's true for any subject that it's basically impossible to teach and learn about a topic unless there's a shared set of terms that everyone understands and can agree about what they mean. I've thought about that fact a lot in developing a course for university students about watershaping, or what I'm most often calling "water architecture" these days. With watershaping as a subject, that sounds simple enough. After all, we all know the meaning of "swimming pool," "fountain" and "pond." Or do we? I'm not so sure anymore. When I started breaking down our vocabulary for classroom use, I quickly recognized that the meanings of the words we use are anything but clear. Indeed, the more I dug into this seemingly simple phase of curriculum development, the murkier things became.The difficulty I ran into was this: Once I moved past the most rudimentary sets of terms and definitions and looked closely at the language we use to describe what we produce, it became painfully obvious to me that
When people ask me how long it takes to create one of my sculptures, I sometimes like to answer, "My whole life." I've always loved art and started collecting it while still in high school, but I never imagined in those formative years that I'd become an artist myself. After all, I have no formal training, and to this day I can't draw - not well, at any rate. My first career was as a computer programmer, my second as a marketing consultant - both distinctly sedentary occupations that led me to seek something physical to do in my spare time. For whatever reason, I decided to try my hand at sculpting stone, crafting a few rough pieces and taking pleasure mostly from the hard work they involved. Right from the start, however, people
When people ask me how long it takes to create one of my sculptures, I sometimes like to answer, "My whole life." I've always loved art and started collecting it while still in high school, but I never imagined in those formative years that I'd become an artist myself. After all, I have no formal training, and to this day I can't draw - not well, at any rate. My first career was as a computer programmer, my second as a marketing consultant - both distinctly sedentary occupations that led me to seek something physical to do in my spare time. For whatever reason, I decided to try my hand at sculpting stone, crafting a few rough pieces and taking pleasure mostly from the hard work they involved. Right from the start, however, people
