2024 Wild Knoll Garden Collaboration
Wild Knoll August 2024
I was invited by artist Carly Glovinski to engage the gardens at Wild Knoll. The garden project activates the footprint of writer, May Sarton’s house that is located on the grounds of the Surf Point Residency. Glovinski initiated the garden project as a resident, and has kept it flourishing with each room planted to bloom in a different color. The garden project is an act to both commemorate and celebrate the history of the site in concert with the commitment to sustain and support the creative process of artists who reside at Surf Point. https://www.surfpoint.me/wildknoll
My installation engaged several sculptures of sunflowers throughout the gardens and the paths to the ocean’s edge at Surf Point. The sculptures are cast from actual sunflowers harvested from the past few growing seasons from gardens in and around the greater Boston area. When transformed with an aggregate of silicone and dirt, the flowers become more tough and rugged. The sculptures affirm the sentinel qualities of sunflowers with their size and rugged appearance. They feel both familiar and from a different world simultaneously.
The combination of a very industrial material juxtaposed with a very organic one creates opposition within the experience. Although the flowers are molded in their fleeting bloom, they convey resilience and fortitude. On site they pose questions: Where are they coming from- were they planted? Are they dying or adapting? Are they memories of past sunflowers? The interaction at Wild Knoll takes on the role of speculative fiction. We don’t know the whole story, but the sculptures take on a subversive and sometimes serene feeling that lead us to larger concerns of future days by the ocean.
