This summer I researched the creation, restoration, and maintenance of Japanese gardens under the guidance of Katie Ryor and with support from a Student Faculty Research Partnership Grant from the Humanities Center and the Asian Studies department. The research for this project included reading and watching source material, visiting and documenting local Japanese gardens, and hands-on garden building and upkeep. This opportunity allowed me to combine my Studio Art major and Art History minor into a meaningful project with tangible results.
I have done landscaping work in the summers since middle school, but I never thought I could use those skills in an academic setting. Katie Ryor’s course “Gardens in China and Japan” taught me to see gardens and landscapes with new appreciation. Evidence of the art of garden building can be seen around the world, with diverse aesthetics and functions that reflect the values of the cultures in which they exist. When building a garden, one must be intentional and attentive to the surrounding landscape and its history.
If a garden is built on a fresh plot, the main influences on design come from the land and allow a large amount of creative freedom. However, when building on previously developed sites it is important to acknowledge the former designs and incorporate or revive or reference certain aspects. Japanese gardens have a rich history of collaboration and innovation which naturally requires a degree of respect, especially when building Japanese gardens outside of Japan.
I was given a plot of land owned by Carleton College, which bought it from Bardwell Smith, professor of Religion and founder of the Carleton Asian Studies program. Dr. Smith hired David Slawson, the designer of Carletons’s Garden of Quiet Listening to transform his backyard across the street at 106 Maple Street into a Japanese garden, with a traditional-style wall and refined plant and land manipulation. Unfortunately, after the Carleton acquired the property, it was left unattended and years of dense growth enveloped the garden. My goal was to remove the new growth, discover what was left of the former garden, and determine the best way to rebuild the landscape.
I read papers and articles on the historical, technical, and practical aspects of Japanese gardens, with a focus on designing within the United States. I visited local gardens to see how others had transformed the native landscape, and I worked with the local volunteers responsible for the upkeep of Carleton’s original Japanese garden. But mostly, I spent my time cutting, digging, sawing, trimming, weeding, and hauling material out of the garden in search of clues to the garden’s design. I was given a photo of a painting of the original garden, and small pieces of rock poking out of the greenery provided some spatial clues.
The first week and a half was the mass removal of seemingly endless saplings, vines, taproots, and thick clusters of weak-stemmed plants with extensive root networks. As the garden opened up, I was able to follow from rock to rock, to plant and gravel, mapping out a rough idea of the layout. After tilling the soil and removing as many roots as possible I was left with soft earth and a good plan for restoring Bardwell Smith’s Japanese garden. I moved the soil to create a miniature landscape representing a stream winding down from the mountains into a pond with an island. I filled the stream with large dark rocks and the pond with smaller white rocks, evoking the colors and textures of a babbling forest brook flowing into a large sunny pond. I ran out of time to finish filling the garden with plants (a years-long endeavor) this summer, but I will be continuing to plant and develop the garden during the coming year.