The Power of Planting

 Here are some before and after pics of our front yard in Islip, NY.  

 2004

2012

 2004

2012

2025?

Clearly our plantings are intended to provide as much privacy screening as possible. James and I hadn't realized just how much our plants had grown until we found these pictures of the yard from eight years ago. A pleasant bonus of our plantings is the habitat it has created for birds, with an active robin's nest right by the dogwood tree.  

Stop! Action!

Certainly there are many mediums to use to create art--- though jelly beans were not on my radar. This sweet stop-action video changes that.  The 'making of' proves the artistic merit of this animated short.  I can't help, however, but reference this Peter Gabriel video, which not only used stop-action filming, but also riffs on the great Italian Renaissance artist Arcimboldo.

Native Planting at Seatuck

 Jackson helps lay out the plants before digging some impressive holes.

 Tags are used to help educate the public about best plants to use on Long Island.

 Landscape designer Sue Avery shows Liv how to space the plants.

 Meanwhile, a local Boy Scout troop was rebuilding coup for the quail restoration project.

Quail getting ready to move into their new home.

Bouler Architecture is proud to support the native planting project at Seatuck, a nature preserve and education center in Islip, NY. Running along the Great South Bay, the preserve features a landscape that is a diverse mix of wetlands and woodlands, and is now developing a native planting scheme that will not only add beauty to the property, it will teach the public about what we should be planting in our Long Island yards. Jackson has been very interested in plants ever since he received a gardening book for attracting birds, so Olivia and I joined him by getting our hands dirty and planting some ferns, viburnum, mountain laurel, and blueberries under the direction of Seatuck's Chairperson of Landscaping, Sue Avery. Sue Avery, a biologist and landscape designer, has been working with fellow members of Seatuck and Long Island Native Plant Initiative to create a garden scheme that will enhance the landscape while restoring habitat.  LINPI has been traveling to untouched areas across Long Island and harvesting plant seeds to cultivate new plants before the species is lost forever. The value of native plants is to not only preserve the species, however, but they work better in our climate, thriving without human intervention.  They also help combat invasive plants.  From bamboo to mustard garlic, invasive species choke out native plants and tamper with our ecosystem.  Unfortunately, in the process they often choke out plants that provide food or habitat for wildlife.  Seatuck's quail restoration project is another effort to restore the balance of our habitat.  Having lost open space, their numbers in the wild have been depleted.  Coupled with the desire to curtail the tick population, Seatuck began raising quail a few years ago, and the results have been phenomenal.  As we rode our bikes home from our morning at Seatuck, I reflected on how lucky we are to be a stone's throw from such a beautiful spot.

James Bouler: My Muse

From 2009 to 2011, I have been tearing through ideas and activities at a breakneck speed.  In fact, I once told someone I felt like a hamster on a wheel, on fire.  Let's just say that mindset isn't the best for making art.  My mind was both tangled like spaghetti and yet void of anything creative.
Sensing a momentary break in the action, Louise Millmann turned to me and said, "Time to get back in the studio."  OK, sounds good, but what to say?  After a few abstract watercolors, just to see color and texture again, I had my inspiration:  James Bouler's 50th Birthday.

I've dabbled in collage over the years, usually to generate ideas for paintings, but with James facing a milestone, his life gave me inspiration. It started in Photoshop, using old photos to make invitations and signs for an upcoming celebration.  Once the ideas started, it was time to work with tactile objects. Using a map of Alabama for the first image, I pulled in an old photo, text, and geography, trying to create a poem about his youth in the South.  With Ray Johnson's film, How To Draw A Bunny playing in the background for inspiration, Jackson helped me cut and glue the pieces in place.  We moved on to the target, with a man and his son planting seeds-- a metaphor for James in so many ways-- with his younger self running into the collage.  The text, a piece by Kierkegaard about the lives we lead and our spiritual goals, seemed a perfect fit to our 'target'-- a life well-lived.