Collage of Curiosities No. 33

February 2026

The bees have returned. It seems they’ve come home just as I have. Heading south, I felt winter thaw around me. I’ve arrived home to see the buds of our Mulberry tree pushing toward sunlight from their bark-covered caves. Early morning walks are veiled in gossamer haze. Rays filter through the leaves of a giant Magnolia looking like the finest dancing gold powder. A touch of magic brought by Persephone herself. .

Spring is the siren’s call to the gardener and one to which we all drunkenly succumb. For me, the garden is another canvas. Something I can play in and layer to create an atmosphere of great impact. I am, however, always conscious of that word, “impact.” While I want to create something of sublime beauty, I always try to listen to what the land is saying first.

Our property is old. First a hunting and fishing ground for the Panzacola tribe of Native Americans as evidenced by the mounds of oyster shells under our coastal hillside.

Eventually, it was owned by members of the Dupont family and, while the original home burned down long before our arrival on scene, traces of their time here are evident. 

A large water tower base sits at the highest point of the property and a cattle guard at the entrance announces everyone’s arrival with a deep, metallic clang. Beautiful old bricks are buried around all of the beds that have been taken over by Florida’s snarling wilderness. This time of year, decades-old Camellias appear everywhere reminding me I am not the first to garden here. The layers of time entwined with the myth of this place.

The garden is an extension of myself and in turn, it, and the wider landscape surrounding it, inform my artwork. There’s a poetry to this symbiotic relationship. The garden will always have evidence of my hand, like brushstrokes in a painting, but I hope it exists harmoniously with the natural world beyond its borders. 

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I recently returned to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania for a visit. Covered in snow, I felt I had the place to myself. I could get up close to the magnificent structures and take in the landscape as a whole without it being caked by a mat of tourists. In this celebrated garden, manmade elements co-mingle with nature. While there are certainly the more formal areas filled with European-inspired sculpture, it slowly falls away until you’re immersed in the equally grand, but less cultivated, areas. Both leave an indelible mark, and their romance is, at least for myself, sublime. 

When you look closely at the sculpture spread throughout the grounds it’s mostly, in reality, a further celebration of the natural world. Stone urns filled with fruits and flowers, seashell shaped fountains offer spring waters to passersby and great archways emphasize the magnificence of the growing up their facades. All offerings to Mother Nature.
Near the pond where I sat for ages watching geese play in patches

of thawed ice stands a four pillared domed structure rising from the banks. Its roof is a lacework of metal open to the trees and branches above. The stone columns are wrapped in cast vines. It exists as a vessel to enhance your experience of an already breathtaking scene. Is it necessary for you to commune with nature? No, but it enhances like prayer in the grandest of cathedrals.

My art and my garden are first and foremost about the spirit of nature. I believe in living WITH it. Inviting it into your life as much as possible. Throughout history, we have not only had gardens but used art to bring it into our homes. Nature casts a spell. Bringing it into the home with art and decoration is a way of holding on to a little piece of that magic until the next time you venture out into it once again. I hope my artwork lives similarly, combining both natural and manmade to remind the viewer of how wondrous nature is, keeping him or her connected to it even when surrounded by four walls.

A few other images from this month.

On my way home from a trip up north, I stopped for two nights at Julep Farms in Dillard, Georgia. This quaint little setting in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains was a perfect escape. Somewhere. I could put pen to paper and think in solitude.

I spent one evening cuddled up on the porch with a glass of wine and one of the barn cats asleep in my lap. It felt like home, without having all the chores. You can bet I’ll be back for a longer retreat when I can get out my drawing pens and work unhindered for several days. A dream.

Entrance to the event barn “Feed and Seed”

A duck on their pond.

The chicken coop at night.

Julep Farms, Dillard, GA