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Color Project 2000 Debuts at The Flower Fields CARLSBAD, Calif. -- This spring, as the landmark ranunculus burst into a carpet of seasonal color, The Flower Fields® at Carlsbad Ranch will debut Color Project 2000, an innovative program that commissions nationally recognized artists to create new works using flowers as their medium. This dynamic, new component to The Flower Fields® will provide visitors with the inspiration for incorporating color and design in their own gardens. Beginning in March 2000, visitors to The Flower Fields® will experience artist-designed works that serve as a laboratory for new horticultural thinking and visual innovations in the use of garden color. One new work will be commissioned each spring and remain on display for two years at The Flower Fields®. The project was inspired in part by renowned artist Robert Irwin and his three-acre garden at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and Claude Monet's celebrated garden in Giverny, France. Color Project 2000 is being funded through a grant from Wells Fargo in collaboration with the Magdalena Ecke YMCA. The project is also receiving support from Armstrong Garden Centers. "We looked at the many feelings The Flower Fields® elicit and discovered the most dominant are a strong sense of color and sense of expression in a natural setting," said Flower Fields president Christopher Calkins. "That led us to reflect on what has been done at the Getty, where they commissioned a well-known artist to use plants and flowers as his palette," Calkins said. "We decided to commission several traditional artists, provide them with a different palette, and see what happens." Color, light, form, texture and symbolism will be explored as the artists plan their projects for The Flower Fields®. Color as inspiration and subject has repeatedly echoed in the work of modern artists. Patricia Patterson, an accomplished San Diego artist and professor of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego, is the first artist to be commissioned for Color Project 2000. Nationally renowned for her paintings of both landscape and people, and her vibrant three-dimensional environments, Patterson has drawn inspiration for her design from the cloistered gardens of the Medieval era and the contemplative gardens of Islamic and Christian traditions. "Visiting The Flower Fields® is such a spectacular visual experience, with a vast openness," Patterson said. " I thought early on that an enclosed garden would compliment that openness." Centered around a reflecting pool, the 5,000 square-foot garden Patterson creates will offer visitors a sense of serenity, while encouraging discovery of its many intricate details. Formal flower beds of intense color, painted wood trellises, vine-covered arches, walking paths, wooden benches and aviaries will create a calming atmosphere for visitors. "Patricia's extraordinary strength as a colorist and her unique ability to work both two and three dimensionally makes her the logical choice for this important commission," said Lynda Forsha, curator of Color Project 2000. Forsha is a former curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and the Binational Exhibition InSite94. "Her unusual palette is informed by an observation of nature, so it is quite natural for her to make the segue back to the source of her inspiration," Forsha said. New York-based painter Gary Lang has been commissioned as Color Project 2000's second artist. His work will debut at The Flower Fields® in the spring of 2001, and provide a unique contrast to Patterson's interpretation of the traditional medieval garden theme. "What I imagine is both a garden as well as a pure floral sculpture," Lang said. "I have designed a circular flora labyrinth with a spiral foot path. The piece has a terraced slope with the outside being the highest point and will profile the tallest flowers." As part of Color Project 2000, special programs are being developed to give visitors a better understanding of each artist and their garden designs. An exhibition of the proposals and photographic documentation of the gardens will be presented in 2002. The Flower Fields® also plans to print a catalogue, posters, calendars and note cards of each garden and have them available for purchase. |
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The Flower
Fields®
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Carlsbad,
California