The Garden: An artist’s spiritual approach to shaping our vision of beauty
The Garden is an inspirational journey by photographer Freeman Patterson exploring his passion for both gardening and photography.
“A forest is a dynamic, creative community. Whether it’s forests or fields, there’s no better way to garden than simply to help the community do what comes naturally.”
Making images, finding passion in the natural garden
Beauty is something we crave. We gravitate to it throughout our life, searching for its elusive qualities. We need it in our lives. And as Freeman Patterson writes in his book, The Garden, when we finally find it, we need to celebrate it. We need to dance, to sing. We need to fall in love all over again.
Beauty, however, is many things to many people. For some it is a frost-covered rose in late fall. For others, it is an arching blade of grass covered in a spring’s morning dew. It may be a field of lupins or a magnificent old oak tree backlit against the morning fog. It may be a white moth hiding in plain sight on an old rustic white-washed window frame.
It may even be the sound of a cardinal singing in spring, or the mist rising off the river as the sun slowly makes its appearance over the horizon.
Canadian artist Freeman Patterson makes no apology for needing beauty in his life. Afterall, to some extent at least, this renowned photographer makes his living finding, exploring and celebrating beauty in the natural world.
“We grow plants, especially flowering plants, in our gardens, greenhouses, and window boxes because they are beautiful. Beauty never requires justification, because it balances the ugliness, hurt, and sorrow that are present in every human life to a greater or lesser degree.”
So, it should come as no surprise that the garden is both where he discovered beauty and where he continues to cultivate it.
His is not a formal garden – One of straight rows, colourful blooms and finely manicured pathways. Freeman’s vision is a garden of natural beauty. A woodland, a meadow, a pond and secret places where he can experience the beauty of silence and explore his dreams.
Freeman Patterson in his garden in Shamper’s Bluff, New Brunswick.
And he writes about it in a way only he can – with a spiritual approach that reflects his formal education and Masters of Divinity from Columbia University in New York and undergraduate degree at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. His is a vision developed over years of exploring and searching for that elusive trait we call beauty.
“We grow plants, especially flowering plants, in our gardens, greenhouses, and window boxes because they are beautiful, writes Patterson. “Beauty never requires justification, because it balances the ugliness, hurt, and sorrow that are present in every human life to a greater or lesser degree. Without beauty as inspiration and refuge, our deprived should grow hard and cold, and often we transfer, or project, our unacknowledged suffering onto others, especially those with whom we live and work."
Beauty is invariably a positive factor, an enriching presence, a healing influence. It is true in music, painting, and dance, of clouds in the sky and birds singing in the light of dawn, of flowers, even humble geraniums in kitchen windows.”
“... no matter how tiny or grand, how colourful or restrained, how wild or ordered, the garden is a metaphor for the gardener. When you invite someone into your garden you are inviting them to meet you.”
But his is not a superficial beauty. Freeman recognizes the importance of protecting simple, natural beauty that is all around us. In fact, he has worked his entire life showing people the beauty in everyday things through his photography.
I have always found Freeman’s work inspirational. From the first time I attended one of his day-long presentation to his countless books that help to cultivate both my photographic vision, and a deep spiritual feeling with the land.
Patterson’s photographic vision has brought him great recognition, but it is his writings that has inspired artists, photographers and just simple lovers of nature to explore their dreams and find meaning in their everyday lives.
Patterson recognizes that “Every garden and every gardener is a work in progress. And no matter how tiny or grand, how colourful or restrained, how wild or ordered, the garden is a metaphor for the gardener. When your invite someone into your garden you are inviting them to meet you.”
Stunning photographs combine with exceptional writings that express Pattersons spiritual roots and love of all things natural.
He believes in preserving the natural world. Even the land where he lives and gardens will remain a natural place after he dies. Patterson was a national trustee of the Nature Conservancy of Canada for six years and, in 1997, he donated his property on Shamper's Bluff to the conservancy for an ecological reserve and education area. By donating the land his vision of beauty will live on and help others appreciate nature’s inherent beauty that he has cultivated on his 500-acres of natural gardens.
Patterson gardens with nature, and therefore native plants are an important part of his canvas. He is not a purist, however, and will happily add non-native plants providing they are not considered invasive where he gardens. It is an approach most gardeners are happy to implement.
The Garden takes a seasonal approach to its chapters in the book.
On spring Patterson writes: “Often we ‘attack’ our gardens in a state of frenzy. It’s all too easy in spring to become overly enthusiastic, to prepare a mental or written list of all the jobs that ‘need’ doing and to destroy the magnificence of the season by trying to do them all. What we are really doing, of course, is passing up our enjoyment of the present, in anticipation of a future that, for one reason or another, may never come.”
On growing old he writes: “My garden grows wilder as I grow older. There’s much less formality and restraint than there used to be, nothing planted in rows, and not a straight path to be found. I’m more tolerant of disorder as well, incorporating may beautiful ‘weeds’ into flower beds simply by not pulling them out. I don’t need or want to get anywhere as quickly or directly as I once did, either. Friends tell me I’m more laid back than I used to be and, sure enough, the garden shows it.”
On the environment and natural gardening he writes: “Some people say our country is underpopulated as if humans were the only species living here. But the best possible use of land is to leave it alone, Freeman writes. “let the trees and other plants filter the air, and allow the soil to keep the water clean. Only then can all the elements and species work together to maintain global temperatures that will prevent us from frying or, alternatively, freezing to death.”
The book explores Patterson’s love of nature, his approach to the land and his thinking behind many of the images throughout the book.
His book, The Garden, is a wonderful journey through his life, from growing up as a child in rural New Brunswick not far from where he now gardens at his home at Shamper’s Bluff, to his life threatening liver transplant and his corresponding rediscovery of life’s celebration.
He talks lovingly of his mother and how she introduced him to the beauty of a flower and gardening at an early age. And, he talks –maybe not quite as lovingly – of his father and his very different approach and disdain for a garden cultivated for beauty rather than sustenance.
Throughout the 190-pages of this hardcover book, Patterson masterly combines his two passions in his life – Photography and gardening. The symbiotic relationship is a celebration of art and the natural world revealed in a spiritual approach that leaves the reader wanting more and desperate to get out into their garden to cultivate its beauty whether in the form of photography, a painter’s canvas, or simply in their minds or in their dreams.
Pick this book up. Read it. Experience all it has to offer both in words and images. Then put it down, go out in your garden and experience it. Then, when the time is right, return to The Garden and read it again and again.
It is that good, it’s that inspirational.
If you are looking for a camera to capture garden images, consider KEH Cameras excellent deals on used cameras and lenses at very reasonable prices. Click here to check out their comprehensive website.
Final thoughts on The Garden, the artist and the quest for beauty
I don’t know when I discovered the work of Freeman Patterson. It was likely back in the 1980s when he published the book Photography of the Natural World. I attended his one-day presentation at my alma mater, McMaster University.
It was truly an inspiring day but one that I only realized recently probably changed my life more than I could ever realize at that time. It was also around that time in 1985 that Patterson received The Order Of Canada.
Back then I was youngish, before the day-to-day struggles of raising a family and caring for elderly parents and the like took up most waking hours. It was only after retiring that I rediscovered Freeman Patterson’s writings. Since then, I have grown to better appreciate his writings, his spiritualism and appreciation of the natural world and, most importantly, capturing that feeling through photography.
His book, The Garden, first published in September of 2003 by Key Porter Books, stands as the perfect complement to my two greatest passions in life – photography and gardening. It is an inspiration to continue to pursue my passions and hopefully it will be the inspiration readers find to dive into gardening and even cultivate a new-found passion for documenting their gardens through photography, a paintbrush or maybe just in their dreams.
To order The Garden through Amazon click here.
For fantastic prices from private bookstores in the U.S. and Canada through Alibris on used copies of The Garden and other Freeman Patterson books click here
