The Language of Gardens

Have you ever wondered what stories your favorite garden may be trying to tell you?

The community cohort, along with artists Stephanie and Dan, will explore the language of garden design for year 3 of Cultivating Connections.

Through this project, a newly created garden design will be co-created with a prosocial approach that combines storytelling, spatial awareness and land stewardship in this unique experience.

Key topics include:

Storytelling as a source of design inspiration,
Art as a form of communication
Garden design as an art form, and
How to read and speak the language of garden design.

The Cultivating Connections program is led by Frances Sink, Ph.D, UUC Minister Emeritus. It is one of the two core activities of the CT Garden Collaborative.

December, 2024 - May, 2025

September, 2023 - June, 2024

During the second year of Cultivating Connections, the CT Garden Collaborative worked with Kristin Eno as the second Artist-in-Residence. Kristin's passion for storytelling and community combined with her love of photography and videography led to the creation of "Memory Blossoms". This collection of photographic prints and video segments were initially shared during the June 20th unveiling event with more than 70 neighbors (seniors, family members, friends, and IVCG volunteers).

The video included here is a compilation of sessions held during the program year. Some outdoors and some indoors. Participating seniors enjoyed exploring gardens around the New Haven area, making paper dolls and collages, and enjoying the artistry of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra during two separate concerts.

Memory Blossoms

Artist's Statement:

I was raised in a garden - a forest actually - tended by Kathy and Sandy. Kathy’s mother lived to the young age of 100, and the whole way through, I knew that Gran really understood me, the artist of the family, even when others might not. My dad’s parents raised Christmas trees on a mountain and roses in their backyard and took me to find wildflowers by the stream at Racoon Ridge. Once my sweet sister Claire and I transitioned into raising gardens of our own, I found Sean, and we planted the seeds of Magnolia and Willa. Parenting has taught me that growth is fragile, fast, astonishing. It has taught me to listen, in hopes I might not forget the wisdom of the young God has entrusted us.

Often I spend my time with children–ages 4, 5, 6, 7–-and I love the way they are always just waiting for magic to happen, and when it does, bit in a firefly or a rainbow cast on the wall by a prism in the sunlight, the very young are ready with a poem or a song, as if it’s just another breath. It’s part of their humanity, absorbing wonder then exhaling it out again, artfully, humorously, usually with a unique flourish that causes curious adults to do a double take. In my past year of doing creative work with both the very young and those who are around the age of my own parents, milkweed has become a metaphor for our fleeting lives on this earth. It glows, it blows, it hovers, it offers us all a measure of wonder. If we would only pause and consider its beauty and fragility, what would we learn about the depths of life, the mystery of death, or the recesses of our own potential, as manifest in our respective imaginations?

As Dan [Camenga - IVCG Director] said on one of our excursions, “We get in our tunnel vision and go from point A to point B. But there’s a lot around us if we slow down just a moment and open our eyes. As we age, we have a natural curiosity to reconnect with the outdoor space and what’s around us, and to be more open to that.” As Laverne stated, “how beautiful it is to see the creation.” Yes. As Blossetta stated in our intro which you can find at the end of each video sequence: “You can laugh, you can cry. It’s there. It’s very beautiful. Because there’s nothing we can do when a person goes home to God. We know not the hour or the minute or the day when it comes.”

I have come to know so many wonderful people through this project. We were all like seeds planted: Hildergard in Alabama, Maryann in the Bronx, Frances, Martha and myself in North Carolina, Ruth, Lynn and Ed in CT, Millie on a farm in Queens, Blossetta in the rich soil of Jamaica. Our seeds were all blown this way, and we found ourselves in gardens of Connecticut, wondering at the beauty, re-remembering the magic of our childhoods.

Working across the spectrum of early childhood to extended or later childhood has offered a fundamental re-evaluation of the role of imagination in human thought and development. What does our imagination mean to the transformation of us from seeds in the ground to seeds flying from the milkweed pod, into the air, and leaving this place? This project invites us to wonder together. To listen, together. To sit and ponder these things, in community. Let us remember that we all come from the garden, and we will all go back to it. Thank you so much for inviting me into the garden with you all. It is so peaceful here, and I am learning how to sit still, and to listen.

-Kristin Eno

June 20, 2024

November, 2022 - June, 2023

During the inaugural year of Cultivating Connections, the CT Garden Collaborative welcomed Doug Jones as the first Artist-in-Residence. Doug worked with the registered seniors beginning just before Thanksgiving in a series of conversations he called the "Discovery Sessions". This was followed by a "Creation Session" at NXTHVN in the City of New Haven where participating seniors, volunteers, and a local girl scout troop co-created art using his unique PIXEL Technique.

Artist's Statement

Thank you to God, my family, the co-creators who helped paint this work, Interfaith Volunteers and Care Givers of Greater New Haven, NXTHVN, and the rest of our exceptional team of community partners. This PIXEL Project brought together people that represent all backgrounds, skill and experience levels, ages, and primary languages. As Mrs. Clarke explains, “[This PIXEL Project] wasn’t something that left anybody out.”

Community members decided that we would paint a landscape that would join together gardens in conversation with the more natural world. I titled this work “Our Communities at the Public Garden’s Edge” to reflect this. An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly flutters in the foreground. We painted a Japanese red maple to symbolize the garden. Garden spaces often include native plants like the North American red maple (Acer rubrum) and the Charter Oak (Quercus alba), and plants found in other countries like the Japanese red maple (Acer palmatum). The Japanese red maple in this painting symbolizes the diverse plants that nurseries throughout New England source from around the world to install in garden spaces throughout Connecticut. The maple’s big red leaves stand out against the bright blue sky like flowers do.

Isolation caused by mobility challenges make many spaces inaccessible to seniors. Cultivating Connections, a program of the CT Garden Collaborative, helps us most because it gets us out of our isolation and it puts us in contact with each other. At the March 10 Creation Session at NXTHVN, 57 community members helped to paint this work. Five more community members helped paint this work from home. We created this artwork together, step-by-step, with a shared vision to develop a community that is intentionally inclusive.

This painting is exceptional because it is painted by the same community that it serves. As Jennifer Baerman explains, “Being part of something like this, [Cultivating Connections] community, gives life more meaning.” As Rose Grenfell explains, “When people get older, like me, there are lots of comments. You hear others generalize our experience and situation. In truth, they cannot fully understand. I’ve faced poverty. I’ve faced limitations of food. I’ve faced challenges getting to my doctors. And I’ve faced isolation. But I still love nature and people. To have the opportunity to realize this, you are able to cherish experiences. This goes beyond the function of money. It addresses the value of living.” As Judith Hayward explains, this project is a practice in Tikkun Olam. Each person painted at least part of a Dot Sheet.

This painting is primarily made of partially painted Dot Sheets that I cut out and collaged/joined together. In this sense, these fragments work for us similar to kintsugi, our time together symbolized by the preciousness of gold. This work truly represents everyone who came together with us.

-Doug Jones

May 20, 2023