“Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts.”
~Mac Griswold
I visited Gordon and Mary Hayward’s gardens in southern Vermont today, for inspiration and to attend a puppet festival.
Since before I graduated high school, Gordon with his wife Mary have been working their one and a half acres near Putney, Vermont, making gardens for others, and writing books about garden design.
We watched 10 puppet shows and what I can only call a kite dance.
The artists, transforming everyday materials into living characters, performed intimate and interactive compositions.
Moving within the interstitial corridors between gardens to attend the shows, I began to see the connection between gardens and theater.
A front porch as a performance space, the square of front lawn an impending spectacle, the neighbor’s gardens on the verge of an audience, I walked around my neighborhood upon return from Vermont to delight in the slowest of the performing arts.
Images are from Gordon and Mary Hayward’s website: http://www.haywardgardens.com/
and of the kite dancer Curtiss Lee Mitchell from Sandglass Theater’s site:www.sandglasstheater.org/.