Blog

Category: Gardens

Stacey Holder: Garden Guide to Preservation Manager

An important part of the mission of Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens is to preserve the work of Isaiah Zagar. Exposure to weather elements and 165,000 visitors a year leaves the site vulnerable to damage, and that’s where PMG’s Preservation Team comes in. Their Preservation Team is lead by Preservation & Facilities Manager Stacey Holder, who took time to share about her role and experience working with the mosaics by Isaiah Zager in the Magic Garden and around Philadelphia.  

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Out of Office: Italy

Earlier this year, my husband and I had the (overwhelming, outstanding, ecstatic) pleasure of spending a few weeks on vacation in Italy. To make the most of our time, we focused on the northern half of the country, traveling a big loop that began and ended in Rome. While there are an astonishing number of sights to see – too many, maybe – my biggest priorities were two of arguably the most fantastic art environments out there – Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden and Sacro Bosco a.k.a The Monster Park of Bomarzo. Luckily, with Rome as our first and primary stop, visiting these sites turned out to be pretty easy.   

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Painting in Progress: An Update from Rock Star Meadow

Rock Star Meadow is a complex of improvisational structures embedded with all forms of creative work installed in a quiet clearing at the foot of a mountain near Woodstock, New York. Nick Della Penna established this site in the early 1980s and was soon joined by creative partner Estelle Ross who passed away in 2016. We spoke with Nick in May of 2022 to learn more about the site and his current work.  

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Growing a Legacy: How Pearl Fryar Continues to Nurture His Vision

It has been several years since Pearl Fryar has been able to complete the demanding physical labor required to maintain his sprawling topiary garden, and now a group of organizations have come together to support Fryar and the future of his life’s work. After a community member called the Executive Director of the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina Jane Przybysz to report the garden’s decline and ask how her institution was planning to help, she immediately got to work. She began by seeking grant funding to support bringing the living sculptures back to their former beauty and creating a consortium of organizations to get involved in this ongoing effort, including the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the WeGOJA Foundation (formerly the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission), and the Garden Conservancy. After some funding was secured earlier this year, a team was hired to begin work on the garden.

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Modern, Patriotic, and American: The Dickeyville Grotto Through the Lens of Ornamentation

SPACES is thrilled to share the following Story Map regarding the creation of the Dickeyville Grotto by Dr. Emma Silverman. Emma is a Mellon Public Humanities Fellow in Monuments and Memory with the National Park Service. She is currently developing a book manuscript on the Watts Towers in Los Angeles that examines how the site was built by a self-taught immigrant and claimed by multiple publics including modernist artists and the African American community in Watts. Emma has also collaborated with public partners to preserve cultural sites through research, oral history, and digital mapping projects. She earned her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley and previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Smith College. 

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In Memory of the Walker Rock Garden

For many years, Milton and Florence Walker created a sprawling, terraced rock garden in the yard of their home on a hill in West Seattle.The site included intricately mosaicked rock walls, pathways, towers, and other structures weaving back and forth across the undulating property. After the Walkers passed away, several groups and individuals fought to purchase and protect the residential site, but it remained in the possession of family members until it was razed in early June 2021. 

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Final Effort to Save The Last Resort

After years of uncertainty regarding the future of David Lee Hoffman’s The Last Resort in Lagunitas, California, it appears that a recent court decision will result in the site being razed. 

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The Hartman Rock Garden: Past, Present, and Future with Kevin Rose

In 1932, during the height of the Great Depression, Harry George “Ben” Hartman (1883-1944) began building a rock garden after losing his job as an iron molder. He started small with the creation of a fishing pond, and over the next decade – with time, cement, and thousands and thousands of rocks – Hartman filled his yard in Springfield, Ohio with over fifty fascinating stone and concrete sculptures, diverse plants, and handcrafted figurines. Kevin Rose, curator at the Hartman Rock Garden, took some time to answer questions about his experience with this midwestern art environment, its connection to his community, and what's next for the rock garden.

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One Large, Living Artwork: The Ellsworth Rock Garden

Part of the Ellsworth Rock Garden’s (ERG) allure is its unlikely setting in Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park. The enormous waterway park is at the southern fringe of the northern boreal forest, consisting of islands and backcountry trails which connect Lakes Namakan, Rainy, and Kabetogama. The latter is the only Voyageurs lake that doesn’t share boundary waters with Canada and is the location of “the Showplace of Lake Kabetogama” as the ERG is locally known. Humans have long capitalized on the area’s natural resources such as the fur trade, logging, mining, and world-class fishing. We saw bald eagles everywhere while canoeing from campsite to campsite and had a few close encounters with black bears.  

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Upcoming Hearing on Historically Designating the Painted Bride Arts Center

UPCOMING HEARING ON HISTORICALLY DESIGNATING THE PAINTED BRIDE ART CENTER

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