Category: Landscape Design

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Women’s History Month Is The Time To Explore The Gardens Of Beatrix Farrand

Beatrix Farrand, one particular of America’s best landscape architects, was born 150 decades back. The anniversary arrives at a excellent time to celebrate her function: many of her crucial gardens are going through comprehensive restoration, a formerly non-public backyard garden is now open up to the community, and a lavishly-illustrated biography is heading for publication.

At age 27, Farrand was the only girl of 11 founders of the American Modern society of Landscape Architects in 1898. Her aunt, only 3 several years older and a near mate, was Edith Wharton the two women had considerably in widespread, together with keen minds, a finely developed aesthetic feeling and membership in New York’s social, cultural, and financial elite. The two women’s maiden names had been Jones, as in “Keeping up with the Jonses.”

“She was a exceptional and outstanding lady who, like her aunt, built an critical profession for herself in the course of a time and in a milieu where by females did not do that,” says Judith Tankard, the Boston-primarily based author of Beatrix Farrand: Backyard garden Artist, Landscape Architect released by Monacelli Press on March 29, 2022. “Not only did women from her qualifications not have professions, but landscape architecture was completely a man’s globe.”

Farrand discovered an early mentor in Charles Sprague Sargent, a botanist at Harvard College and the founding director of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts. She commenced practicing landscape architecture in New York in 1895, locating consumers among the her mother’s and aunt’s social connections. Her get the job done quickly captivated discover and she became the first consulting landscape architect at Yale College, Princeton College, the College of Chicago and other faculties. She developed the first East Garden at the White House (famously redesigned by Bunny Mellon and Melania Trump.) The rose backyard garden at the New York Botanical Back garden in the Bronx is her design, and she is justly celebrated for her incomparable work at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. On Very long Island, in Connecticut and on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, wealthy homeowners hired Farrand to develop gardens to compliment their grand manses.

3 very distinctive Connecticut gardens built by her are getting restored, such as Hill-Stead and Harkness Memorial State Park, which are open to the public.

The back garden she made for Abby Aldrich Rockefeller in Seal Harbor, Maine in 1926 is the unusual non-public backyard that has been meticulously maintained and is practically unchanged. Now just one of the homes of a landscape non-gain, it is open up to the community from mid-July until early September via on-line reservations.

Browsing any of Farrand’s extant or recreated gardens is a delightful lesson in scale, proportion, color, horticultural practice and the development of vistas, as very well as simple fears this sort of as exactly where paths need to go, what elements finest suit the internet site, how the back garden is to be utilised and how it is to link to the residence. Farrand was a fantastic designer, but she was also a experienced vegetation man or woman and an helpful supervisor of personnel. She did not shy absent from tough bodily work, and was recognised for her no-nonsense do the job outfits, which involved stout boots.

Tankard will promote her e book with a series of lectures, together with at the Back garden Conservancy and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Artwork.

“I desired to tell the life tale of this extraordinary girl,” she suggests. “Besides her great design and style work, she opened doors and produced a profession route for ladies. Now, fifty percent of the pupils at landscape architecture faculties close to the state are girls.”

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Delta Engineers, Architects, Land Surveyors, & Landscape Architects, DPC

REBECCA DIORIO has joined the Delta Engineers, Architects, Land Surveyors, & Landscape Architects, DPC company normal crew as an administrative assistant. She has several a long time of working experience in the administrative-assistant job, as nicely as in buyer services. Her tasks incorporate knowledge entry and retaining undertaking ideas electronically for task professionals, reviewing timesheet and price studies, and helping with the onboarding method for new staff.

ELIZABETH BLINN has also joined the corporate general team as human-sources coordinator. She delivers a broad variety of experience to her part. Blinn has numerous a long time of HR expertise, functioning in the banking industry, better education and learning, and at private businesses. Her responsibilities incorporate top Delta’s workforce administration & advancement, which include serving as the level man or woman for troubles involving new-employee recruitment, staff onboarding, and the administration and processing of positive aspects and payroll.

CYNTHIA DUBOIS has arrive aboard Delta’s corporate typical workforce as a task accountant. She is properly-versed in economical statements and procedures since she has previously labored as a title clerk. Her tasks include things like processing billing, accounts payable, and accounts-receivable transactions, examining subcontractor invoices for compliance with contracts, and providing assistance in state and federal audits.

TRICIA KUNZMAN has joined Delta as a building administrator. Kunzman provides 8 many years of construction-administration encounter, with a background in administration and proposal development for authorities contractors in just several industries for different governing administration organizations. Her common challenge obligations consist of supervision of ongoing construction, value estimating and review of price tag proposals, evaluation of requests for info (RFIs) and submittals, issuing discipline-work directives, and noncompliance stories and conversation in between the contractors and the owners.

SHAUNI JONES has joined the Delta architectural staff as a senior architectural designer. Jones is a multipurpose designer who is at ease executing a extensive variety of design responsibilities together with AutoCAD/Revit drafting and 3D modeling, development documentation, and cross-willpower coordination. He is proficient about setting up codes and accessibility suggestions and has labored for consumers with numerous design requirements on industrial, industrial, and residential tasks.

NOORUL NOORI has joined the facilities group at Delta as a senior structural engineer. He has 22 years of experience with style and design and building management of properties, bridges, and other buildings. Noori expended element of his vocation in Afghanistan and experienced his individual ebook, termed “Building Estimating Handbook,” released in 2016. His most important accountability will be top quality regulate of structural operate affiliated with Delta’s facilities, transportation, and some specialty precast and architectural projects.

SAMUEL LAUBER has joined Delta’s precast crew as a senior task engineer. He has far more than 20 a long time of experience in industrial, petrochemical, govt, and professional civil and structural-style and design apps. Lauber specializes in underground concrete engineering, style and design, and evaluation for both pre-solid and field-put concrete. He has worked all above the globe, together with in the United States, Southern Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Dubai, UAE.

ALALEH TAVAKOLI has also joined Delta’s precast team as a senior undertaking engineer. Tavakoli acquired her bachelor’s diploma in civil engineering in her household state of Iran, right before having her master’s diploma and afterwards, her Ph.D., in Milan, Italy. While serving as an adjunct professor at the identical college in Milan, she received two submit-doc fellowships in her discipline. Tavakoli later on moved to the U.S. and has been performing as a structural engineer at any time given that.

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Outside at Its Best With SCJ Alliance’s Landscape Architecture Team

The outdoors spaces around your residence can offer daily beauty, fragrance and peace. Jeff Glander needs you to appreciate and make use of all the spots close to your household or organization. He is a Specialist Landscape Architect (PLA) and principal at SCJ Alliance, a 100{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} worker-owned organization. SCJ specializes in engineering, design administration, environmental organizing, and landscape architecture and structure, among the other issues. Jeff and his crew can aid you with designs to actualize the desires and wishes for your out of doors areas.

rock water feature in a garden that SCJ Alliance planned
Normal searching h2o functions are well known in the Pacific Northwest. Luckily, drinking water functions can come in several varieties, motivated by the place out there and the taste of the home-owner. Image courtesy: SCJ Alliance

“There is art and science to arranging the outside environment,” suggests Jeff, who was captivated to the combination. “I always had a garden and I like artwork,” he provides. Landscape architecture has permitted him the joy of equally. He serves each household and business customers.

For the house owner, the excellent time to discuss with Jeff is as before long as you obtain your house. It is simple to get caught up in the developing construction and neglect to think about the lay of the land, which is a vital element. The price of web-site arranging are unable to be ignored. Which way will you confront the front of the household? The place is the solar in the morning? How is the afternoon mild? What’s the topography? Do you want photo voltaic electric power? Which style of crops will need what sort of light-weight? An initial conference with Jeff lets him to get a experience for your personal preferences. Alongside one another you can imagine your one of a kind out of doors ecosystem. “My beloved thing is operating with my associates and assisting our consumers obtain their targets for their residence.,” states Jeff.

It aids to produce a listing of all the amenities you want in your property. That could include back garden areas, a play area for the children, patios, decks, walkways, driveways and drinking water features. How do you integrate all these into the landscape? Jeff helps with the grand program. It is a puzzle that is diverse with each individual shopper and each and every assets.

a living way with plants in pots along it created by SCJ Alliance
Residing partitions, also regarded as inexperienced partitions and plant partitions, are not only gorgeous, but they are employed to produce privacy, lessen noise, and make retaining walls. Photograph courtesy: SCJ Alliance

If you have at any time viewed HGTV, the dwelling advancement truth channel, and observed disastrous yards transformed into magnificent out of doors kitchens or oases with swimming pools, waterfalls and temper lights, then you get the idea. You may not have the finances for every thing, but it is essential to make plans that get the job done for you. The SCJ groups of landscape architects and engineers are completely ready for you.

“It’s a pleasurable approach,” suggests Jeff, who notes that some men and women establish their strategy and implement areas of it above time. Your schematics and images of the goods you want, encourage the ideal results for all your exterior areas. Value is typically a thing to consider. “In most situations you can get revenue back again by increased benefit,” assures Jeff, and you get to delight in it though you reside in the dwelling.

A substantial sum of the function Jeff completes is professional projects. He has been concerned with above 2,000 initiatives in Thurston County given that 1980. Faculties, parks, multi-family members housing and senior dwelling services are in his portfolio.

Fieldstone Memory Care Courtyard with round stone walkway, benches and shrubs
The Fieldstone Memory Care Courtyards offers every day enjoyment to people and visitors. Photo credit rating: Doug Walker Images

“Senior housing initiatives are fun,” claims Jeff. “My father-in-regulation lives in the independent dwelling section of Fieldstone.” It involves a compact putting eco-friendly and raised beds for local community gardening.

In the memory care section there is a huge, safe courtyard involving the two wings that is available to all the residents all the time. Citizens can go outside in hotter weather conditions to sit while soaking up the scenery that features a vast range of plants and flowering shrubs. They admire the h2o aspect and the vegetation improvements regularly as a result of the period and generally provides one thing new. There is seasonal desire and even fragrances to interact extra senses. These in wheelchairs can be pushed around the paved paths and get up shut to the flowers. Numerous rooms facial area this park-like location, which is an included advantage. A great deal considered and notice goes into the setting up of shared spaces like this.

Trellis and walkway with shrubs surrounding it
Get hold of the Landscape Architecture group at SCJ Alliance assist you make the outdoor spaces that bring pleasure, elegance, and fun into your lifestyle. Picture courtesy: SCJ Alliance

You have noticed that spring is in the air. Possibly, your garden is contacting for your focus. Milder days and the change to daylight cost savings time give you a lot more incentive to get out there with your rake and mower. “It’s a good time to start out considering of moss command,” implies Jeff. In this article are a handful of ideas:

  • Thatch and deal with your garden for moss now
  • Prune fruit trees though they are nevertheless dormant
  • Cleanse up all your beds
  • Clip again decorative grasses
  • Prune the roses
  • Cut the lifeless growth from perennials
  • Tidy up the backyard garden and consider what you’ll be planting when the weather warms up

You can get extra information about the products and services provided by SCJ Alliance on the organization website. Get some enable for utilizing your outside goals. Jeff would love to listen to from you.

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Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted celebrated as originator of U.S. public parks system

The United States is blessed with a prosperity of parks, from town and county parks to a network of 52 state parks. That amount can be extrapolated nationwide. One particular man we can thank for the beginning of American park devices is Fredrick Legislation Olmsted.

April 26 marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, and Olmsted 200 is a movement celebrating his eyesight — a eyesight that incorporated general public parks for all folks.

He considered that parks are an vital part of any community. Not only do they give a accumulating put for loved ones and friends, but they make improvements to air and drinking water good quality, guard the groundwater and give a dwelling for birds and animals. Parks also support connect us to mother nature and give us options for wellness and perfectly-currently being, and they reinforce our communities.

Regarded as the father of American landscape architecture, Olmsted was born in 1822 in Hartford, Conn., and grew up in a family that valued character and the outdoors.

He taught himself architecture but to start with he was a seaman’s apprentice, a service provider, a farmer and a journalist. He traveled in 1850 to England as a journalist. This tour proved to be lifetime-transforming. He toured Birkenhead Park in Wirral, England, and experienced an epiphany. Birkenhead Park had opened in 1847 as the world’s initially publicly funded civic park. It held almost 140 landscaped acres and was open up to the general public for totally free.

Olmsted made a decision that park entry should really be a ideal for all Us residents, far too. Birkenhead impressed him to arrive again to the United States and get something started. His epiphany led to the development of Central Park in New York.

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Central Park was the very first landscaped park in the United States.

Open up to the public in 1859, this significant public functions project took far more than two yrs to finish, with practically 50 million cubic yards of stone and soil moved, 36 bridges and 11 overpasses produced and 500,000 trees, shrubs and vines planted.

With the development of Central Park, Olmsted planted the seed for far more parks and at some point the development of a countrywide park program.

He worked with Sen. John Conness of California to designate Yosemite Valley as community land. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Act in 1864, developing what would sooner or later turn into Yosemite Nationwide Park. Olmsted also led a campaign to preserve Niagara Falls.

In 1916, his son helped draft legislation that aided create the national parks.

Though ideal known for his development of Central Park, Olmsted made hundreds of layouts, in excess of 30 many years literally defining the discipline of landscape architecture and illustrating how landscapes could enhance the human situation.

Though we imagine of Olmsted as a park maker, in simple fact he intended each individual form of landscape, like parks and parkway units, recreation areas, college campuses, urban and suburban areas, prepared communities, cemeteries and specific landscapes for arboreta and expositions.

Some of his other assignments include things like Boston’s Emerald Necklace, the U.S. Capitol, the campus of Stanford College in California, Belle Island Park in Detroit, and his last major function, the Biltmore Gardens in Asheville, N.C.

Olmsted retired in 1895, but his sons John Charles and Frederick Jr. continued the Olmsted Firm, which labored as a landscape architecture company for extra than 100 several years.

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OLMSTED 200

In 1980, a group of design and style and preservation industry experts and fascinated folks formed a coalition dedicated to progress the operate and legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted. Their mission is to advance Olmsted ideas and the legacy of irreplaceable parks and landscapes that revitalize communities and enrich people’s lives.

To commemorate the bicentennial of his delivery, Olmsted 200 was organized. With the topic “Parks for All People,” hundreds of situations will be celebrated throughout the United States this yr.

Arkansans are preparing various events.

◼️ The Minimal Rock Yard Club is sponsoring a significant university university student artwork contest with a cash prize of $200 for the winning entry. The deadline to submit an entry is April 8. Right here is a shortcut link: arkansasonline.com/319club.

◼️ At 6:30 p.m. April 14, the Central Arkansas Library Program is web hosting an on line webinar, “The Genius of the Location: Frederick Regulation Olmsted, Landscape Architecture and Arkansas.”

Kimball Erdman of the Fay Jones Faculty of Architecture at the College of Arkansas will communicate about Olmsted and the record of landscape architecture. Tom Hill of Scorching Springs National Park will converse on Olmsted’s quick come across with Arkansas and Chris East of StudioMain will tackle landscape architecture prospects adjacent to the Key Library in Tiny Rock. Ken McCown of the Fay Jones College will reasonable. The event is cost-free, but registration is necessary. Here is a shortcut url: arkansasonline.com/319olmsted.

◼️ April 20, Garvan Woodland Gardens in Scorching Springs will host Olmsted Day.

◼️ April 22, P. Allen Smith will rejoice Olmsted Day at his farm Moss Mountain in Roland with a lecture, backyard garden tour and lunch. Check out https://pallensmith.com/item/april-22-2022/

For a record of all the gatherings planned in the course of the year (extra will be included as they are organized) stop by olmsted200.org and appear beneath “Be a part of the Celebration.”

Parks make better metropolitan areas and communities, building them vibrant and sustainable. Frederick Law Olmsted’s vision of community parks for all folks and parks’ capability to bolster communities and market general public well-currently being are a lot more vital than ever.

Janet Carson’s web site is at arkansasonline.com/planitjanet.

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Anuradha Mathur, Landscape Architecture | University of Pennsylvania Almanac

Anuradha Mathur, Landscape Architecture

caption: Anuradha MathurAnuradha (Anu) Mathur, a professor emeritus of landscape architecture in the Weitzman University of Style and design, handed away on February 28. She was 61. 

Born and raised in India, Prof. Mathur received a BArch in 1986 from the University of Architecture in Ahmedabad, India, then obtained an MLA (master’s diploma in landscape architecture) in 1991 from Penn’s Weitzman University of Layout. 3 many years just after graduating, she joined the faculty of Penn’s landscape architecture section as an assistant professor. In 2003, she was promoted to associate professor, and she turned a complete professor in 2012. At Penn, she taught a collection of studios and programs that challenged Western strategies about wildness, wetness, mother nature, and tradition. On excursions to Mumbai, Jerusalem, and the U.S.-Mexico border, between some others, she challenged her students to feel in another way about the landscape and their purpose as designers. Prof. Mathur was engaged with the Penn community, serving on School Senate and University Council committees for the duration of her full tenure and acquiring College Investigation Basis (URF) grants to analyze landscape architecture adjacent to the Ganges River and to map the flood plains of the Mississippi River. She retired from Penn in the summer of 2021. 

To retain a relationship with her indigenous India, Prof. Mathur co-launched a organization with her husband, Dilip da Cunha. “With soaring seas, flooding towns, polluted rivers, piling wastes, and widening inequalities, we believe that that ubiquitous wetness in place of the land-drinking water binary holds the way forward,” they wrote. “It is an exciting pre-disciplinary floor of style by which we re-articulate the earlier, expertise the current, and imagine the long run.” Prof. Mathur and Dr. da Cunha exhibited all around the entire world and published various textbooks, such as Mississippi Floods: Building a Shifting Landscape (2001) Deccan Traverses: The Earning of Bangalore’s Terrain (2006) and Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (2009). In 2011 and 2012, they curated In the Terrain of H2o, an worldwide symposium, at the Weitzman College. They received numerous awards, which includes a Pew Fellowship in 2017, which regarded their collaborative function imagining new opportunities for the layout of the built ecosystem and complicated the lines separating land and h2o, city and rural, official and informal environments. 

Prof. Mathur is survived by her husband, Dilip da Cunha, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Scheduling and Preservation. To read quite a few Weitzman School faculty’s remembrances of Prof. Mathur, visit https://www.layout.upenn.edu/news/remembering-anu-mathur.

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Landscape architect creates Lego models of Madison to connect with community | Local News

For local landscape architect Aaron Williams, building with Legos has become more than just a hobby.

The white, plastic blocks — formed into mini models of Madison businesses and buildings, particularly those on Monroe Street — are a way for him to connect with other residents, become “completely absorbed in something” and gain a greater appreciation for the neighborhood that he loves.

A resident of the Dudgeon-Monroe neighborhood, Williams said he was sad to see the restaurants, coffee shops and stores he enjoyed along Monroe Street shutter at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the restaurants, Fairchild, had just opened, but it closed up due to COVID before Williams got a chance to go. He decided to build it with Legos instead.

“That’s what really started all this stuff. If you go back to the first post that I did, the series was called, ‘Can’t go so we build,’” Williams said. “It was about the places that we frequented, and that were the backdrop of sort of my daily existence, but now were shuttered or silenced.”

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Now roughly two years later, Williams has created almost 60 Lego miniatures of Madison buildings, the vast majority of them businesses along Monroe Street.







Lego models

Aaron Williams shows a photo of the facade of Crescendo Espresso Bar and Music Cafe as he works on a Lego model of the building. Williams starts each of his models by taking photos of all sides of the actual building. Then he develops a scale — usually one Lego brick for one door frame — and uses trial and error to replicate the building. 




He begins by taking photos of all sides of the actual building out in the community. Then he develops a scale — usually one Lego brick for one door frame — and starts doing trial and error to replicate the building, but pint-sized. The process is something that he enjoys. It comes easily and is a way for him to get into a “zone” where he feels fully present in the moment.

“Being present, that’s the hardest thing to get into and reside in,” he said. “And that’s what Lego allows me to do.”

Once the build is done, Williams snaps some photos and posts it to his Instagram, aw_legoarchitecture, with a brief description of the business and what it brings to the Madison community. Williams said he wants to bring attention to places that have struggled because of the pandemic.

After posting, Williams would deconstruct the model and reuse the bricks for the next creation to save money on Legos and have “the past” help build the future.


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As interest in his project has grown, however, Williams has started to keep some of the models. His work was featured during a gallery night at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in the fall. He’s also sold some of the models, but hasn’t made a profit.

“If there’s a way to monetize it, I haven’t figured it out,” Williams said, noting that’s maybe part of why people are connecting with the buildings. He’s not trying to make money off them.







Lego models

A Lego model of the UW Field House created by landscape architect Aaron Williams. The Field House is one of the largest models that he’s created from a set of 1,200 white and translucent Lego pieces his wife gave him a few years ago. He says the monochromatic color edits the buildings “down to their essential qualities” and heightens their architecture. 




Williams said his main goal is to “enhance the experience of the everyday.” To Williams, that means taking something ordinary and looking at it in a different way. A way that “allows you to grow and see the world differently,” he said.

Williams, 42, is an assistant campus planner at UW-Madison and is also the founder of Aaron Williams Landscape Architecture. He lives a few blocks off Monroe Street with his wife and their 8-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. He grew up in Antigo, a farming town in northern Wisconsin, but has lived in Madison for the last 20 years.

Aside from being a landscape architect and building these Lego creations, what do you like to do for fun?

I enjoy outdoor activities and spending time with my family. Partaking in the typical Madison things. Going to sporting events. We’re big into basketball and golf, soccer, tennis, swimming. Maybe get back to travel at some point. Haven’t done much of that in the last two years.

Have you designed anything in the Madison area that people would know of?

A number of streetscapes (in) Cambridge, Grafton, Burlington, Middleton, Stoughton. Robinia Courtyard (829 E. Washington Ave.) is probably one of the more popular ones right now. I started that when I was with SAA Design Group. I’ve done work for Lucille up on the Square.

You started the Lego project as a way to connect to businesses that you couldn’t go to. Do you think that the message of this project has changed over time now that you can go to these businesses again? How has it evolved?

I know these businesses. I personally know them visually as a much richer experience. But now I know many of the owners or the inhabitants of these buildings (because of how they’ve interacted with the Lego project). When I go to these businesses, Madison becomes that much smaller. That’s what you want to hope for a place that you live, right? You want to be of the place. I’ve felt I’ve become more of the place.







Lego models

Williams shows his signature displayed on his Lego model of Crescendo Espresso Bar and Music Cafe. He says he doesn’t consider himself a “real artist” even though his models were featured during a gallery night at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art last fall. 




Was there a reason why you picked white for the color?

In 2015, my wife had bought me the Lego architecture set, which is a set of 1,200 white and translucent pieces only. I got (it) out, and decided, “Let’s see if I can build Fairchild,” which was the first build I did.

Besides really the practicality reason … having that absence of color makes you more aware of everything around you. I’m less interested in reflecting what the buildings look like from a true color standpoint. I’m more (interested in) editing them down to their essential qualities. I’m kind of heightening them in a sense by creating them in a monochromatic color. And then allowing you to make an interpretation for yourself.

You said a bit ago that you didn’t really think of yourself as an artist. Do you feel like an artist now? It feels like that is what this project has become.

I suppose. I’m not trained in that sense. I don’t want to offend real artists. It’s not my livelihood by any means. But there’s definitely an artistic quality to it. Art’s in the eye of the beholder. Mine just happens to be little white bricks.