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Growing art
By Pat Boyd, Executive Director, South Dakotans for
the Arts
Spring is here—and South Dakota gardeners are preparing for another beautiful growing season here on the Northern plains. All across our state, artists are using Nature’s palette to create works on a majestic scale. Gardens full of art emerge as winter becomes just a memory.
South Dakota has long combined the arts with nature. Sioux Falls has the historic Japanese Garden, filled with plants, Asian sculpture and an artistic layout that mirrors the Japanese culture. Similarly, Wessington Springs hosts arts events in their Shakespeare Garden, where plants native to Elizabethan England form the background to celebrations of the life and words of the Bard. Sculpture gardens and beautifully landscaped areas surround galleries, as artists and curators consciously spread the visual feast outdoors as well as inside.It just makes sense. After all, the same elements that make art appealing are critical to garden design. The juxtaposition of color, texture, line and shape make each flowering space unique, and gives the artistic gardener different choices to make each year, when designing for maximum effect.
Many of our state’s premier artists are also avid gardeners. They understand design elements better than most people, and certainly have an eye for color. But more importantly, many artists love flexing their creative muscles in media outside their usual discipline. Painters might relax with sculpture, composers may enjoy painting landscapes, poets can be photographers—and many artists are also gardeners. They revel in the mystery of planting a seed and nurturing the exotic designs of nature, so apparent in each flower and leaf.
And that makes all of us who garden artists in our own right. We plan our palette, sketch our design and then, with shovel, rake, trowel and hoe, create our landscape work of art, renewed each year, fresh each season, and as distinctive and unique as each gardener. Go outdoors and enjoy your own “growing” art this spring!
For more about cultural development in South Dakota, visit www.sdarts.org, a joint website of South Dakotans for the Arts and the South Dakota Arts Council.