Once we decided on the sculpture by Marc Rosenquist, we had to figure out how to get it into a garden in full growth. Before knowing exactly where we wanted to position it, or how far it would have to be transported, Marc and Gail brought it over in their Range Rover. Little did they know what awaited--how to move a 300 to 400 pound bronze object several hundred feet along a curving gravel path, through plants, and into position in a fully grown garden. We had to improvise.

But first things first.

The Visit
We had visited Marc's and Gail's home a couple of weeks before to see his collection. We didn't know we were doing more than exploring, just looking and thinking. I particularly liked this bumpy ball.


I knew just where this one would go. It has a natural or a "found object" quality, and it evokes suggestions of mysterious origins--excavation of an archaeological artifact, a giant nugget of minerals, a mysterious object dug out of the ground, a weird boulder of argellite (our local stone), possibly a carefully shaped message from the past. And it has a certain playfulness about it.

Ironically, after talking to Mark and Gail, I discovered that Marc's father, an airline pilot, often took the family on archaeological digs, and this sculpture just happens to be a scaled up replica of a relatively common Pre-Columbian object, though no one knows its purpose, if it had one. So I suppose my intuition, at least in this case, was right.

Marc also has several elongated sculptures I believe he calls "trees." This one was resting against a large tree trunk when I first saw it. Here you see it leaning beside a white doorway, not a great background. But this one would be perfect as a vertical element, either mounted as an upright, or leaning against a tree on the edge of the garden, where it would be a surprise, visible only on close observation.


Here's the top, showing the texture and striations in the bronze.


And here is another of the "trees," just lying on the ground.


This was another favorite (for scale, think large, four or five feet long). Obviously, it needs a position in the open.





A close-up of the surface texture ...


Okay--this one too. Again I can find thematic connections with my garden's "story," and it would look very good over in a dark corner near the woodland edge, or as a feature in the woodland garden (to be) ... a giant, overscale object, five feet in diameter?


But we ultimately decided on this one. A strange object, humorous, evocative, threatening in a way. Attractive here in the open on Marc's and Gail's lawn, but in my garden it would always be partially hidden by plants. William Martin has suggested I need a bunch of these, in different sizes, scattered about the garden. I like that idea. Marc?


And this, perhaps on the terrace, in some kind of axial arrangement ...


Speaking of axial arrangement, look at the two together. That's a powerful combination, really defining the space in a way that pulls the whole landscape toward a focal point.


Marc's and Gail's garden is arranged along the banks of a small stream. Not minimal at all, quite profuse really, but treated as a minimal element in relation to the lawn and the house complex. So very different from Federal Twist, where the garden rushes up to the house in a wave of vegetable force ("vegetable" in the old sense:  "Had we but world enough, and time . . . /My vegetable love should grow/Vaster than empires and more slow." - Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.). And the point of this ramble? Just that sculpture can be used in different ways in different environments.


Marc, Gail, and Phil in our ramble around their lawn ...


Marc, pondering a question, just looking, perhaps wondering whether he really wants to lose a work that's been in his life for 20 years?


The terrace, very Italian, and they love Italy ... not really relevant to this post ... or is anything irrelevant?


The terrace is part of the story, after all ... where we talked, settled in, and made the deal ...


As I was saying at the start, we had to move this heavy object several hundred feet. Marc, also being a fine wood craftsman, had brought boards cut to the right length to roll it out of the Range Rover to the ground.

I believe it was Gail who thought to bring a rug and quilt. So as Marc rolled the piece along the gravel path, he made frequent stops so Gail could alternately move the rug or the quilt from the back to the front, then Marc would roll it a little further. About half way down to the garden, I joined in the rolling, thinking I would be of help, but not realizing Gail had the really hard job.

Finally we got it to the back side of the garden, eyeballed a path through some semi-sacrificial plants, and slowly, and very carefully, tumbled it end over end into place.






Gail sent me a few pics of Marc's other work, mostly metal, some in wood ...






Grants/Awards

1992- Printmaking Fellowship Award, Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
1990- National Endowment of the Arts, Sculpture Award,
1990- New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Visual Arts Grant, NJ
1990- Louise Cramer Award, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
1988- New Jersey State Council of the Arts, Visual Arts Grant, NJ
1982- New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Visual Arts Grant, NJ
1980- Ford Foundation Grant, New York, NY
1979- Ford Foundation Grant, New York, NY

Selected Exhibitions

2005- “Sculpture Selection,” Harrison Street Gallery, Frenchtown, NJ
2003- “New Jersey Prints,” Mason Gross School of the Arts, New Brunswick, NJ
2001- “Off the Wall,” Bristol-Myers Squibb Gallery, Princeton, NJ
1993- “Fellowship Recipients,” Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, NJ
1992- “Sculpture,” Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1991- “Marc Rosenquist,” solo exhibition, Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1991- “New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition,” Bristol-Myers Squibb Gallery, Princeton, NJ
1991- “September Survey,” Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990- “Gallery Artists,” Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990- “Art Now, Contemporary Philadelphia Artists,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
1989- “Gallery Survey of Artists,” Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1989- “Introducing,” Larry Becker Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1987- “Six Sculptors,” 55 Mercer Gallery, New York, NY
1986- “Solo Exhibition, Marc Rosenquist,” Educational Testing Center, Princeton, NJ
1986- “Outdoor/Indoor,” Ramapo College, NJ
1985- “Recent,” New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
1984- “Iron Cast,” Pratt Institute Gallery, New York, NY
1984- “Public Art Trust,” Washington Square Park, Washington DC
1983- “Sculpture,” 14 Sculpture Gallery, New York, NY
1982- “S/300,” Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
1981- “Newark Museum Third Biennial,” Newark, NJ
1981- “Sculpture 1981,” Grace Gallery, New York, NY

Collections

New Jersey State Council on the Arts
Newark Public Library
Jersey City Museum
Newark Museum
Dietrick Collection
The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
New Jersey State Museum
Rutgers University
Dieu Donne Paper Inc.
The Montclair State Museum
Philadelphia Savings Fund Collection
Judith and David Brodsky Collection

Phil and I first saw Marc Rosenquist's sculptures in his and Gail's garden a couple of months back and we immediately liked them. Gail said we should have one in our garden, so we went to look two weeks ago. It's in the picture below, though you can't see it, slightly to the left of center, at a focal point where the paths meet, a center of energy in the garden. (I'll tell the story of how it got to that spot in the garden in the future, when Gail sends the images of Mark and me maneuvering it into place, ...


... which wasn't easy. The piece is cast bronze, measures about 44 inches high and 36 inches across at the base, and must weigh in excess of 300 pounds). When I first saw it, a classical image of a beehive came to mind, thus the appropriateness to a naturalistic, pseudo-ecological garden, to use William Martin's (click 'Wigandia' if you don't know him) phrase, as adopted from someone (he thinks) in the UK. But the more I look at it in the garden, the less I think of a beehive. It's really quite abstract. Consider Marc's original name for it, 'Pay Dirt'.


Doesn't really look like this one, does it?


No. Abstract is better. Let it be suggestive of something else if you wish, or see it on its own terms.

It appears and vanishes as you walk around the garden. From some points of view, very prominent, from others, almost invisible.


All these photos were made in the bright light of morning, on a very hot July 5. Below it takes on a dark solidity in contrast to the brightly backlit Filipendula rubra 'Venusta', Panicum virgatum 'Shenandoah', and Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'.


Or viewed from the other side, through Molinia caerulea 'Transparent'.


It appears to take on a blueish cast seen with the glaucous foliage of Rudbeckia maxima.


Or maybe R2D2 hiding in the bushes?




It's totally invisible from the path on the western side of the garden.



Even when it's not visible, the pictures provide useful context for an object that isn't garden, in the garden.




In hiding...


Completing the circle of the garden path, approaching the starting point, where it's only a few feet from the path... I have to say I feel this piece was made for this garden. Ironic, because Marc cast it 20 years ago, when this garden was a rough cedar wood.




And the rest is context.