Master Landscaping
http://www.masterlandscaping.net

Despite the summer heat, it is cool back here in the little wood. The curving limbs of ancient trees are nature’s sculptures, and the sound of running water from a waterfall and creek are the music, with solos from the birds. On a small still pond, each bloom on the water lilies is a work of art. And no set designer could improve on the lighting. Tread softly along a mossy path and you come to a clearing where you half expect to find fairies dancing in the dappled sunlight.

The surprise is that this idyllic spot is only yards from heavily trafficked streets, a high school and post office, car dealerships and banks - right here in Wilmington, steps away from Oleander Drive.

Jim Freeman, whose company does mostly commercial landscaping, said, “It was such a unique challenge, in really a confined space, to try to bring together so many different elements. But it was enjoyable to work with someone who really wanted to do something of that magnitude in their backyard. It was interesting and there was a lot of creativity there.”

On the edge of the wood, a charming playhouse (”which I won in a raffle,” Kenny said) is popular with the kids. The bridge and gazebo, the latter draped in Confederate jasmine, make romantic settings, especially for brides. “We overseed our lawn with rye (in winter) so the grass is always green, and many of the trees are evergreens, so we can use the garden most of the year,” said Kenny, who prefers to use natural light whenever possible.

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PHILADELPHIA — Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, whose remarkable paintings are drawing crowds to Philadelphia’s Museum of Art, might be happy that this city was chosen for a rare retrospective of her work.

In Philadelphia, many women have broken new ground in art, and with a rapidly growing Mexican population, this town also has increasingly excellent Mexican dining and shopping. This surely would please Kahlo, who dearly loved her native land.

Visitors are lining up for timed tickets to the Kahlo exhibit, which is drawn from a larger version of the show that opened in Mexico City to celebrate the centennial of Kahlo’s birth in July 1907. Philadelphia is the only East Coast venue. In June, the exhibit will go on to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Philadelphia museums

%26#149; The exhibits:

Frida Kahlo: Through May 18 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street; 1-215-763-8100; www.philamuseum.org. Timed tickets, $20 including audio tour. Hours: Tues.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Fri. until 8:45 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. until 6 p.m. “The Art of Lee Miller,” through April 27, is included with museum admission, $14; pay what you wish on Sunday.

Cecilia Beaux: Through April 13 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1301 Cherry St.; 1-215-972-7600; www.pafa.org. Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission, $7.

Moore College of Art and Design: 20th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway; 1-215-965-4000; www.moore.edu. Seven galleries. Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. noon-4 p.m. Free admission.

The Plastic Club: 247 Camac St.; Phone: 1-215-545-9324. Changing monthly exhibits. Free admission.

%26#149; Philadelphia information: www.gophila.com.

Included are more than 40 paintings, some never seen before in the United States, and more than 100 photographs, many from Kahlo’s private collection. They tell the story of a woman who felt passionately about everything from love to politics and was able to pour this emotion into her art. Most of her best-known paintings are self-portraits. Those that graphically portray pain are not easy to take. But they possess brilliant color and an undeniable power that have gained legions of admirers and made her a cult figure in the art world.

Kahlo suffered from more than the broken heart caused by her straying husband, the muralist and revolutionary Diego Rivera. A streetcar accident in her late teens shattered her spine and made her unable to bear children. It was during recuperation from the accident that she began to paint, transforming her suffering into art.

The colorful Mexican garb that became her trademark helped to hide the steel corset she had to wear all her life. Some of the most difficult paintings portray the 30 surgeries she was subjected to over her lifetime and her grief at being childless. Her pet monkeys and parrots, who perhaps were her surrogate children, are with her in several paintings.

Four galleries of photos that precede the paintings are an excellent introduction, showing the highs and lows of her life, and figures like Socialist Leon Trotsky, with whom she reputedly had an affair. The photos show that Kahlo was far more attractive than the heavy browed, faintly mustached woman in her paintings, one of which was titled “Very Ugly.”

In celebration of the Kahlo show, the museum gift shop is packed with tempting wares from Mexico. Two local shops, Eye’s Gallery, 402 South St., and Indigo Arts, 151 N. Third St., also are troves of colorful Mexican art, jewelry, clothing, musical instruments and crafts.

Lee Miller

Exceptional women are being celebrated in several Philadelphia exhibits this spring. Another female iconoclast, photographer Lee Miller, is the subject of a separate exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also inspired by the centenary of her birth.

“The Art of Lee Miller” celebrates the life of an internationally renowned beauty who worked on both sides of the camera. Miller was a fashion model and studio assistant to Man Ray in Paris before coming into her own with portraits and photos from her extensive travels.

Her sometimes bizarre work clearly shows the influence of the friendships she formed with leading Surrealists such as Salvador Dali and Max Ernst. But she is best known for her sometimes-brutal photos as one of the few female war correspondents during World War II. For British Vogue, she photographed medical teams working to save the wounded shortly after the D-Day invasion and the liberation of Paris.

Near the end of the war, Miller traveled east into Germany where she published shocking first-hand accounts of the concentration camp at Dachau and images of Hitler’s abandoned flat in Munich, including one of herself in Hitler’s bath tub. The show, organized by London’s Victoria %26amp; Albert Museum, will travel to San Francisco MOMA and the Jeu de Paume in Paris after leaving Philadelphia.

Cecilia Beaux

After the harsh subjects of Frida Kahlo and Lee Miller, the softer portraits by Philadelphia native Cecilia Beaux at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts may seem a relief. But while Beaux’s subject matter was traditional, she was a trailblazer.

She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy from 1876-78 and became its first female faculty member. Although the years have eclipsed her fame, this exhibit of 85 oils and works on paper clearly show why she was widely celebrated in her lifetime and considered the artistic equal of portraitists such as Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent.

Beaux won many prestigious art prizes for her portraits of the upper classes and was the first American woman to be invited to add her likeness to the Hall of Portraits at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Her portraits are in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Moore College of Art and Design

Beaux was not the only woman to find encouragement in 19th-century Philadelphia. Moore College of Art and Design, the first and only women’s art and design college in the nation, was founded in 1848 by Sarah Peter, who saw art as a way to educate women for careers and financial independence.

Originally named the Philadelphia School of Design for Women until merging with the Moore Institute in 1932, the school’s first major was textile design, which prepared women to work in the new industries created by the Industrial Revolution. Today, Moore has 10 fine arts and design programs leading to a bachelor of fine arts degree.

In 1897, the school hosted the first meeting of the Plastic Club, a pioneer club where women artists could exchange ideas and exhibit their work. “Plastic” was meant to refer to the state of any unfinished work of art. Cecilia Beaux was a member along with students of a prominent artist of the time, Howard Pyle, who called his talented group the “Red Rose Girls.”

The women’s club, a rarity at the time, held regular exhibits as well as lectures and workshops — practices that continue to this day. When their rented rooms became too cramped, members held entertainments to raise funds, along with art auctions. Prominent male painters including John Sloan and William Glackens contributed work to the auctions, helping to finance the move in 1909 to an 1824 double townhouse on Camac Street with an exceptional studio/gallery on the second floor. Membership was expanded to include men in 1991.

The public is invited to view free exhibitions at the Plastic Club, enjoying their quarters on a quaint, historic Philadelphia street that has been dubbed by the city “The Street of Artists.” Workshops using live models are open to the public for a fee of $8.

Graduates of Moore (when it was still called the Philadelphia School of Design for Women) continued to pave the way for women artists. They formed most of the group of painters and sculptors known as the “Philadelphia 10″ that mounted traveling exhibitions of women’s work from 1917-45. These exhibits presenting high quality work were a significant step toward gaining recognition for women in the wider art world.

Moore College of Art and Design, now centrally located on Logan Square opposite the Franklin Institute, continues to show the work of talented women as part of its exhibits. The school has five free public galleries showing student work along with a wide variety of innovative contemporary art.

Eleanor Berman is an award-winning writer whose travels have taken her to 70 countries and seven continents.

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ROANOKE, Va. — Until now, the prominent features of Roanoke’s skyline have been neon: a Dr Pepper sign, a giant star atop Mill Mountain and an animated coffee pot that pours its contents into a cup. Not far away, “Jesus Saves” glows in red from a hilltop church.

But there is a new addition under construction in this old railroad city in the mountains of western Virginia: a $66 million contemporary art museum of steel, patinated zinc and glass under construction on a prominent downtown site amid 1920s-era brick facades.

The building will provide a new home for the Art Museum of Western Virginia, which will be renamed the Taubman Museum of Art when it opens in November.

The building was designed by Randall Stout, a Los Angeles architect, who said the exterior was drawn after months of working on plans for the interior.

“The beginning of bending roofs started to happen very quickly and very intuitively,” he said. The result — undulating roofs with sharp peaks unlike any building in the southeastern U.S. — could be evocative of the surrounding mountains.

Or not. One critic thought the rendering published in The Roanoke Times looked like “the wreck of the Flying Nun.”

“We’ve had a lot of people who really don’t like the building, and a lot of people who love the building, and a lot of people who can’t make up their minds whether they like it or not,” said Georganne Bingham, the Art Museum of Western Virginia’s director.

The mixed reaction was expected, she said.

“It’s a work of art,” Bingham said. “That makes it very emotional for people.”

While some locals have expressed wariness, the bold design of Frank Gehry’s protege is playing well elsewhere. It received an American Architecture Award last year from the Chicago Athenaeum, and Bingham said she expects an increased number of visitors from around the world as the fall opening date approaches.

Stout believes skeptics may be won over once they visit the museum.

“I think people will walk in and understand that the way the spaces flow and the high volumes of ceilings, the washing of natural light — I think they’ll recognize that as striking, and much different than entering maybe a more conventional building,” he said.

Stout draws inspiration in part from his childhood in rural east Tennessee, where he often played in an old tobacco barn. Its curing wings, high-ceiling hayloft and the ribbons of light that filtered through spaces in its wooden planks made him feel like he was in an elegant cathedral.

He still likes drama and sunlight in his buildings. Visitors will enter the three-story museum through an atrium with a domed glass ceiling rising 81 feet to a peak, featuring a wide staircase to second-floor galleries that “in itself is a dramatic piece of architecture,” museum spokeswoman Kimberly Templeton said.

Some 240,000 visitors are expected the first year, and Bingham is eager for them to see what the museum has to offer.

“I think they’re going to be very surprised to find out that we have something going on inside the building that makes the program worthy of the building,” she said.

The 81,000 square feet of space will give the museum four times the exhibit area that it has in its current building — room to display much more of the permanent collection as well as special exhibits. Patrons also might be surprised at how different the artwork looks once it is moved from the museum where lighting is difficult to control, Bingham said.

The museum now displays less than 6 percent of its permanent collection, which includes works of 19th and 20th century American art by Thomas Eakins, Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer and contemporary works by Jacob Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Sally Mann.

Each gallery will be distinctive. For instance, a Judith Leiber collection of women’s jeweled purses will be suspended in individual lighted glass spheres in a small gallery with its walls and ceiling covered in black fabric.

About 70 percent of visitors are expected to come from within a 100-mile radius of Roanoke, a city of close to 95,000 that was the headquarters of the Norfolk %26amp; Western Railway before it merged with the Southern in the 1980s. The city’s transportation museum has a number of locomotives built in the city, and the O. Winston Link Museum features photography of the steam-engine era.

Nearly $52 million has been raised for the museum, including $12 million in government money. Among 175 donors, the largest gift has been $15 million from Nicholas and Eugenia Taubman, for whom the new building will be named. Nicholas Taubman, a Roanoke native, is U.S. ambassador to Romania.

While the building departs from tradition, Stout pays homage to Roanoke’s roots. On one side of the building, passing Norfolk Southern trains are visible on nearby tracks. Balconies on the opposite side give bird’s-eye views of the H%26amp;C coffee pot and Dr Pepper signs.

“If we can help people celebrate who they are and what they are and what their role has meant,” Bingham said, “then we’ll feel like we are accomplishing a lot of our goal.”

If You Go…

ART MUSEUM OF WESTERN VIRGINIA: Center in the Square, One Market Square, Roanoke, Va.; http://www.artmuseumroanoke.org/ or 540-342-5760. The museum galleries will close in their current location June 10 and are scheduled to reopen in the new building Nov. 8 on Salem Avenue between Market Street and Williamson Road.

ROANOKE TOURISM: http://www.visitroanokeva.com or 800-635-5535. Other local attractions include the O. Winston Link Museum and the Virginia Museum of Transportation, which has a locomotive collection.

Copyright document.write(new Date().getFullYear()); Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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ROANOKE, Va. — Until now, the prominent features of Roanoke’s skyline have been neon: a Dr Pepper sign, a giant star atop Mill Mountain and an animated coffee pot that pours its contents into a cup. Not far away, “Jesus Saves” glows in red from a hilltop church.

But there is a new addition under construction in this old railroad city in the mountains of western Virginia: a $66 million contemporary art museum of steel, patinated zinc and glass under construction on a prominent downtown site amid 1920s-era brick facades.

The building will provide a new home for the Art Museum of Western Virginia, which will be renamed the Taubman Museum of Art when it opens in November.

The building was designed by Randall Stout, a Los Angeles architect, who said the exterior was drawn after months of working on plans for the interior.

“The beginning of bending roofs started to happen very quickly and very intuitively,” he said. The result — undulating roofs with sharp peaks unlike any building in the southeastern U.S. — could be evocative of the surrounding mountains.

Or not. One critic thought the rendering published in The Roanoke Times looked like “the wreck of the Flying Nun.”

“We’ve had a lot of people who really don’t like the building, and a lot of people who love the building, and a lot of people who can’t make up their minds whether they like it or not,” said Georganne Bingham, the Art Museum of Western Virginia’s director.

The mixed reaction was expected, she said.

“It’s a work of art,” Bingham said. “That makes it very emotional for people.”

While some locals have expressed wariness, the bold design of Frank Gehry’s protege is playing well elsewhere. It received an American Architecture Award last year from the Chicago Athenaeum, and Bingham said she expects an increased number of visitors from around the world as the fall opening date approaches.

Stout believes skeptics may be won over once they visit the museum.

“I think people will walk in and understand that the way the spaces flow and the high volumes of ceilings, the washing of natural light — I think they’ll recognize that as striking, and much different than entering maybe a more conventional building,” he said.

Stout draws inspiration in part from his childhood in rural east Tennessee, where he often played in an old tobacco barn. Its curing wings, high-ceiling hayloft and the ribbons of light that filtered through spaces in its wooden planks made him feel like he was in an elegant cathedral.

He still likes drama and sunlight in his buildings. Visitors will enter the three-story museum through an atrium with a domed glass ceiling rising 81 feet to a peak, featuring a wide staircase to second-floor galleries that “in itself is a dramatic piece of architecture,” museum spokeswoman Kimberly Templeton said.

Some 240,000 visitors are expected the first year, and Bingham is eager for them to see what the museum has to offer.

“I think they’re going to be very surprised to find out that we have something going on inside the building that makes the program worthy of the building,” she said.

The 81,000 square feet of space will give the museum four times the exhibit area that it has in its current building — room to display much more of the permanent collection as well as special exhibits. Patrons also might be surprised at how different the artwork looks once it is moved from the museum where lighting is difficult to control, Bingham said.

The museum now displays less than 6 percent of its permanent collection, which includes works of 19th and 20th century American art by Thomas Eakins, Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer and contemporary works by Jacob Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Sally Mann.

Each gallery will be distinctive. For instance, a Judith Leiber collection of women’s jeweled purses will be suspended in individual lighted glass spheres in a small gallery with its walls and ceiling covered in black fabric.

About 70 percent of visitors are expected to come from within a 100-mile radius of Roanoke, a city of close to 95,000 that was the headquarters of the Norfolk %26amp; Western Railway before it merged with the Southern in the 1980s. The city’s transportation museum has a number of locomotives built in the city, and the O. Winston Link Museum features photography of the steam-engine era.

Nearly $52 million has been raised for the museum, including $12 million in government money. Among 175 donors, the largest gift has been $15 million from Nicholas and Eugenia Taubman, for whom the new building will be named. Nicholas Taubman, a Roanoke native, is U.S. ambassador to Romania.

While the building departs from tradition, Stout pays homage to Roanoke’s roots. On one side of the building, passing Norfolk Southern trains are visible on nearby tracks. Balconies on the opposite side give bird’s-eye views of the H%26amp;C coffee pot and Dr Pepper signs.

“If we can help people celebrate who they are and what they are and what their role has meant,” Bingham said, “then we’ll feel like we are accomplishing a lot of our goal.”

If You Go…

ART MUSEUM OF WESTERN VIRGINIA: Center in the Square, One Market Square, Roanoke, Va.; http://www.artmuseumroanoke.org/ or 540-342-5760. The museum galleries will close in their current location June 10 and are scheduled to reopen in the new building Nov. 8 on Salem Avenue between Market Street and Williamson Road.

ROANOKE TOURISM: http://www.visitroanokeva.com or 800-635-5535. Other local attractions include the O. Winston Link Museum and the Virginia Museum of Transportation, which has a locomotive collection.

Copyright document.write(new Date().getFullYear()); Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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NEW YORK, USA: Flag Luxury Properties, a New York-based developer of luxury resort and residential properties, has announced that it has engaged Baccarat Hotels and Residences, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital Group, to operate its exclusive ultra-luxury hotel and residences on the island of Anguilla. The property will be named The Baccarat Hotel and Residences at Temenos, Anguilla and will be the first of its kind in the Caribbean. The Baccarat Hotel and Residences at Temenos, Anguilla will include a 114-key ultra-luxury hotel and an 18,800-square-foot world-class spa and a fitness center. Within the hotel there will be 50 oceanfront residences. Guests and residents will enjoy personal exclusive services and signature Baccarat aesthetics. The 286-acre resort also includes 18 estate homes, 10 villas, 38 Spa Villas along with a Greg Norman-designed championship golf course — Anguilla’s first and only course. The Temenos Golf Club, managed by Troon Golf opened in 2006 and has quickly become well known for its breathtaking views of the Caribbean Sea and nearby St. Maarten, along with its dramatic and challenging terrain and other features. The full-service 28,000 square foot clubhouse features Zurra — a Mediterranean-influenced restaurant managed by famed restaurant operators, authors and lifestyle experts Bob and Melinda Blanchard. Baccarat brings to the resort its longstanding reputation as one of the world’s premier luxury brands — one of a select few that define and shape luxury. Barry Sternlicht, Chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, is widely recognized as one of the lodging industry’s leaders in building great brands, having led the creation of W Hotels and St. Regis brands and the reinvention of Westin when he served as Chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels %26amp; Resorts. In addition to Baccarat Hotels, Starwood Capital is developing two other international luxury brands, Crillon Hotels and 1 Hotels %26amp; Residences. %26quot;We are very excited to announce our participation in this outstanding resort which will quickly become one of the Caribbean’s and the world’s finest resorts,%26quot; said Mr. Sternlicht. %26quot;Nearly every amenity will be provided to our guests which we will combine with a spirit of uncompromising service. Baccarat is a 247 year old global brand. It is synonymous with perfection and beauty. Each Baccarat product is a handmade work of art by craftsmen who dedicate their lives to the creation of these masterpieces. We intend for each Baccarat Hotel to be its own work of art. In Baccarat Hotels, we aspire to be the perfect getaway experience combining memorable design executed in a relaxed, comfortable and inviting atmosphere. The Baccarat Resort in Anguilla is about the quality of light, a sublime elegance which can be appreciated in bare feet.%26quot; %26quot;We have engaged Baccarat Hotels %26amp; Residences to help us take our project to completion and ensure that our vision for this unique property is completely fulfilled,%26quot; said Paul C. Kanavos, Chairman and CEO of Flag Luxury. %26quot;We have always intended Temenos Anguilla to be one of the world’s finest and most exclusive resorts — based not only on having the very best facilities, but also reflecting a superior level of service for our residents and guests that is unsurpassed anywhere. We know that Barry Sternlicht shares our vision and we look forward to working with him and his team to make it a reality.%26quot;

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Patrons checking out books at the Atascadero Library may want to check out something else as well%26#8212;the art on exhibit in the adjoining Martin Polin Room. Just because the show is sequestered in a separate area doesnt mean theres anything to hide from public view.

The current show by Atascadero Art Association members contains no X-rated themes, no nudes, nothing disturbing, bizarre or difficult to understand.

Barnyard animals and still lives are two of the main topics, along with fluffy kittens, peaceful scenes and flowers of the nearly three

dozen pieces on display from 11 local artists.

An elderly aunt or young grandchild will find nothing disturbing in these images.

Graphite beginnings

Talent is easy to recognize in the work of featured artist Tracy Di Vita.

Di Vita started her art career by doing pencil drawings%26#8212; note her likeness of a puffy Burmese cat titled %26#8220;Bonsai.%26#8221; After urgings by her mother, also an artist, Di Vita began using colors.

%26#8220;That switch took me a couple of years, just because the medium is so different,%26#8221; she said. Having started with graphite, however, gave her a head start on such techniques as composition and values.

Di Vita now runs a business creating pet portraits. The artist uses photographs %26#8212; for reference only, she notes%26#8212;to create original works, such as an oil painting of a Dalmatian that seems despondent about not being able to be outside running around or riding atop a fire engine.

Its easy to project ones own thoughts into some of the lifelike critters in the show.

Nearby art subjects

Di Vita finds most of her subject matter, especially the farm animals, right in her own Atascadero neighborhood %26#8220;The cow lives down around the corner,%26#8221; she said. Di Vita was referring to her oil painting, %26#8220;166 Eyelashes,%26#8221; of a sad-eyed Hereford with an ear tag, The bovine looks resigned to the fact that its days are numbered.

Other artists also capture their subjects moods. Esther Krystoffs oil painting of a rooster in %26#8220;Attitude%26#8221; speaks volumes. If the cock could speak, it might be saying, %26#8220;You talkin to me?%26#8221;

Of all the works in the show, those by Nancy Koren could be considered the most edgy.

One of only two abstracts in the exhibit, %26#8220;From the Depths%26#8221; is multimedia of pastel-colored whirls and streaks resembling the sea, waves and sky.

Just as books undergo many revisions, oftentimes a work of art is a matter of trial and error.

%26#8220;Originally it was just one painting, but then the stretcher bar warped on me,%26#8221; Koren explained of her side-by- side bas-relief. The work was ruined, but rather than waste her efforts, Koren cut out the raised elements formed from sand and paste and reassembled them against a new background.

%26#8220;It turned into something positive,%26#8221; she said.

Reach freelance writer Lee Sutter at

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“Lawnscapes: Mowing Patterns To Make Your Yard a Work of Art” by David Parfitt (Quirk, 2007, $14.95)

If you think the most fun aspect of this neat little 79-page book is its tufty green front cover, you are only partly right.

Inside, illustrations show an impressive variety of fancy patterns, ranging from regimented stripes to complex intertwined curves, that could be traced across your very own patch of greensward. They make the book entrancing armchair reading.

That leaves the question: Do you actually want to get out of your armchair? Making your lawn into art calls for planning, puzzling and a fair amount of physical labor. Is it worth it? Clearly, Parfitt’s answer is yes, and he has no history of lawn expertise.

“As much as I would love to say that I come from a long line of groundsmen at Wimbledon, I can’t,” he said in an exchange of e-mails.

Parfitt, who lives in Brighton, England, describes himself as a sculptor, “with a particular interest in unconventional materials, and creative approaches to commonplace activities.”

He’s worked with stone and ice, water and light. He did a previous book about unconventional treehouses; lawnscaping seemed “an amazingly simple opportunity to create unexpected effects in a familiar setting. I couldn’t resist it.” His projects are concerned with public space in its widest sense, while inviting people to think of creativity as a process they have every right to. “Both art and the environment make so much more sense as a participant rather than a consumer,” he said encouragingly.

And so to practicing art on your own lawn.

How exactly does it work? Directional mowing makes the patterns. Parfitt made clear that the act of cutting itself makes absolutely no difference - it’s the flattening that matters. “The part of the mower that makes the most noticeable stripes is the roller. A roller by itself makes as good a stripe as a mower,” he said.

Most lawns are fairly large expanses, Parfitt pointed out, so a machine is a good way of covering large areas.

“For absolute control and precision perhaps the best tool is a broom, but to do a whole lawn with a broom would be similar to cutting the grass with toenail clippers; save it for the detail.”

Here are excerpts from his answers to other questions prompted by his book.

What grass height do you need before you begin to make patterns?

For a lawn’s health the ground should not be visible through the grass; in practice that means the grass should be over an inch high. At an inch high the lawn will show well-defined stripes; a bit longer and they get brighter, until the lawn is so long that the cut ends of the grass aren’t visible anymore and your effect will fade.

Doesn’t the grass spring back up again right away?

The grass does tend to spring up a bit just after you have rolled it, but surprisingly this results in the effect becoming more noticeable, as quite a lot of the blades spring up from being completely flattened to the soil.

How long can a grass artwork last?

In my experience a single day’s effort will last for several weeks before it begins to fade, and even then the stripes seem to survive as the sun tends to dry out one direction’s stripe more than the other, resulting in a color difference in the grass itself.

Do people have to keep off the art lawn?

When you are working on the lawn design you will soon notice that your feet work just like small rollers if you drag your feet, so walking on a light line will actually help, while walking on a dark line will show footprints. You soon get into the habit of only walking on light lines. Once the design is done it will barely notice if someone walks on it. This is a matter of scale. Most lawns and designs are quite expansive; a single person’s tracks are small in comparison.

Do weeds have any place in your patterns or do they depend on totally perfect, even grass?

The lawns that were used in the book were at an organic turf farm in Sussex; most of the sort of weeds that you would associate with lawns were present and did not seriously affect the designs.

What got you started mowing in patterns?

When I was about 12 an uncle challenged me, saying, “you want to be an artist - take the mower and make a picture on the lawn.” I set off and made an awful mess of his neat lawn. I left determined to be an artist and to crack the lawn thing one day.

Is your lawn at home a perfect picture? A changing picture gallery? Just plain grass?

My lawn at home is currently an experiment in breeding dandelions. Parts of it are overgrown, concealing odd bits of discarded carved stone, a whale, a mermaid, Queen Victoria’s head, a trident that I found in a Greek temple, and, best of all, the fluffy toys that my cat Pablo insists on stealing from neighbors’ houses and hiding in the grass.

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Since word got out last spring that Jerry Traunfeld was leaving The Herbfarm after 17 years, intent on (finally!) opening his own restaurant in Seattle, inquiring minds have been wondering: When will his place open, and where?

While the answers aren’t set in stone, this much is fact: He’s got a lease in hand for a North Capitol Hill space, and until it’s signed, sealed and delivered (cross your fingers, he’s close), I swore to keep mum on the address. Wild horses couldn’t drag it outta me! today, anyway. But here’s what I know:

If negotiations go favorably, late summer is Jerry’s best guesstimate for opening a 100-seat restaurant and bar. He’s envisioned the design as Danish Modern: “natural materials, clean lines, no artwork, nor patterns” and if all goes as planned, Poppy, (nick)-named for his mom, will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

The menu, surprisingly, was inspired by a trip to India.

“My idea is not to do an Indian restaurant, but to borrow the concept of the thali,” a large platter used to serve many different little dishes. “I might have a soup, a salad or two, a couple of interesting vegetables, a braised meat and a grilled fish, flatbread and a grain,” he says.

It’s no surprise that the modest chef, who’s won national acclaim for his cookery and his cookbooks, will depend on local and seasonal ingredients including fresh herbs. But in addition, he says, “I’ve been playing around with learning more about cooking with spices. It’s exciting, because it’s a change from the style I’ve been doing at The Herbfarm and more of the kind of restaurant I’d like to eat at. Instead of plates being a work of art, each dish will be really quite simple, focusing on two or three ingredients.”

Wait! Before you scream, “No, Jerry, No! Not another seasonally inspired small-plates restaurant!” let the man explain further:

“People love to eat small plates and little bits of things. That’s the trend. But when you go to one of those places, you pass things around and you only get one bite of something. Here, you don’t have to share. You don’t have to pass it around. You’ll have lots of different tastes” but they’ll be all yours.

Dinner, served six nights a week, will cost about $30 per person for an individual thali composed of about 10 or 11 items, and vegetarians will find many reasons to seek the place out. “Without a set menu, you’ll have to trust me that it’ll be wonderful,” Traunfeld says. Those who don’t want the full-meal-deal can turn to the bar menu, indulging in appetizers and desserts, including signature dishes like his pan-fried mussels with rosemary aioli; crispy, cheesey “jump-in-the-mouths” (which earned a place in his second cookbook, “The Herbal Kitchen”); and delicate hand-pulled strudel.

Looking back on his decision to leave The Herbfarm, Traunfeld says, “I had no intention of leaving, but once I started thinking about this restaurant, the time was right.” Executive chef Keith Luce took the helm in October, and Traunfeld left soon after.

Remembering the day the right concept for his own restaurant struck him, Traunfeld recalls wondering, “What if I did the thali, but with my own style of food? The minute I thought about that, everything started to make sense.” And that’s when he decided he “needed a new direction, a new challenge.” Fingers crossed, looking toward the future, he acknowledges, “I’m certainly going to get that and more.”

Readers react about “undercooked” food

Last week’s column regarding the Rare Food Movement (seattletimes.com/nancyleson) got readers talking. Many agreed with “Mrs. Cook,” who complained vociferously about restaurants that serve rare or “undercooked” meat, poultry and seafood. Others couldn’t fathom why anyone would feel pestered when a waiter asks about their cooking preference. Everyone’s got an opinion or a story. And here’s a handful including one that busts Traunfeld’s chops!

From James Knodell: “If the server asks how you prefer your meat cooked, what’s the beef? If you like your meat well-done, just say so. Personally, I prefer mine the way the chef thinks it ought to be cooked.”

From Lani Caprio, recalling an experience in Washington, D.C.: “The waiter described a continental-style salmon special that sounded delicious. Before ordering, I asked him how the fish was cooked. He said it was just very lightly seared on the outside. I said I would prefer my fish cooked through. He told me the cook would refuse to prepare it that way. I then requested that he ask the cook to prepare my salmon cooked through. He refused to even make the request, saying that this is the way fish is prepared at the restaurant, so if I didn’t like it cooked that way I needed to order something else. At that point, with the agreement of my dining partner, we left the restaurant.”

From Jim Zebert: “As a chef, I can tell you from my 28 years of experience that cooking food to a certain degree of doneness to be chic does no favors to the consumer or the food itself. Foods have different characteristics and need to be treated accordingly … I would never serve a veal chop rare. The meat is too young and tender to have fully developed its flavor and texture. By cooking it at least medium to medium well, you develop a wonderful ’sirloin’ feel on your palate and intensify the flavor of the meat. Served rare, the veal has the texture of wet, soggy, chewy rubber. Sound good to you? Eat the food the way it tastes the best. Don’t let trends take over your sensibility.”

From Loretta Vosk: “I love rare meat. Always have … Recently, we ate at Joule, and I ordered the bison hanger. I was asked how I’d like it cooked. I responded that since I’d never had bison hanger steak before, I’d leave it to the discretion of the chef. I was glad that I did; it was just perfect. As Kevin Davis demonstrated [via his remarks in my column], good chefs know how to cook a piece of meat or poultry to maximize its flavor and texture. So, when I’m in a nice restaurant I will leave it to the chef’s discretion. And when I’m in a burger joint, the answer is ‘RARE!’ ”

From Peter Cummings, GM of Issaquah’s Coho Cafe: “With food costs so high, and margins thin, I encourage all my staff to get it right the first time. This either prompts us to comment on our preferred cooking temp, or ask [the customer] theirs.”

From Virginia Towne: “My mother had a good line when we were at a pre-wedding dinner on the Oregon coast and she had ordered her steak well-done. The meat came out bloody, and she turned to the waiter and stated, ‘Do you have burn ointment for this cow?’ ”

From Marsha Stueckle: “While dining at Woodinville’s The Herbfarm a few years ago, I noticed that the squab, that evening’s fare, was rare but not until I had taken a bite! To quiet my gag reflex I discreetly placed the offending bit into my napkin. Two hours into our dining event I realized that I needed to use the restroom, and to my horror I noticed that servers were replacing used napkins with clean linens if a patron left their table for any reason. I scooped up my napkin as ladylike as possible and tossed it into the kitchen as I passed!”

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Creating a beautiful gar limited to just putting out pretty colorful flowers each year. In fact, a wide variety of things you can do to decorate your garden, make it unique, and turn it into a serene sanctuary ll never want to leave.

Growing a full fledged garden with mature plants, trees, bushes, shrubs, elaborate garden beds and containers, lush grassy areas, garden furniture and other decorations takes a lot of time to do. And while you can have it all fairly quickly by hiring a professional landscaping firm to set it all up for you, taking the time to do it your way is half the fun.

And one of the best features you can add to your own garden spaces are those which involve water. Water features in the garden can range from small and simple, to large and elaborate too, all up to what you personally want for your own garden spaces.

Here are some of the most common water garden features most people love to have included

Bird Baths - One of the most simple water features you can add to the garden is a simple premade bird bath. These are wonderful to use as both a yard and garden decoration, and as a way to attract more birds to your garden areas too.

A bird bath can be as simple as a small container filled with water, a water bowl placed on a pedestal, or a work of art which includes a little bubbling water fountain in the middle too.

Backyard Ponds - Another popular and fairly simple way to add a water feature to your garden is to put in a small backyard pond. Now this can be installed anywhere like of course, and these can usually be purchased in kit form too so easy to get set up.

Water Gardens - Water gardens can also be fairly easy to set up, particularly if you create them in a small ready-made pond or you create a container water garden. Larger and more elaborate water gardens can be created too of course.

Fountains %26amp; Waterfalls - These are quite popular as water features in the garden, because the movement of the water provides a soothing tranquility that helps relieve stress and block out background noises. Waterfalls and fountains can be small and free standing, wall mounted, or large and installed in the middle of a pond too.

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“Soundgarden,” the work of art that gave its name to one of Seattle’s most famous rock bands, is being held hostage to homeland security.

The hillside art installation created by artist Doug Hollis %26#151; 12 20-foot towers with wind vanes that capture offshore breezes %26#151; stands on the Lake Washington shore just north of Magnuson Park. The wind-activated sound is eerie and evocative, like the cry of an orca.

But few hear that mystical music now. Soundgarden is one of several original works sited on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration campus, federal property under tight security since Sept. 11, 2001.

When the nation is on orange alert, there is no public access to the NOAA base. During a yellow alert, it is possible to walk onto the base in ones and twos. A guard will ask to see picture identification and inspect parcels. Entrance hours are weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., but visitors must leave by 5 p.m.

Soundgarden is still worth the trip, though it is sad to see the disrepair. NOAA Assistant Director Robert Henderson says the agency maintenance budget has been slashed, and it’s not possible to do much more than keep the towers upright.

He said, “We have been able to replace some of the bearings, which are wearing out.” What doesn’t get done is landscaping. Approaches are clogged with weeds, and the towers show signs of wear.

The only good news about Soundgarden is that, because it’s difficult to gain access, there has been less vandalism.

Henderson says, “Before, we had to keep replacing the sign.”

Pj’s for Bobo: At the Museum of History %26amp; Industry (MOHAI), they’re making plans to celebrate the birthday of Bobo the gorilla, once a star attraction at Woodland Park Zoo. Bobo died at 16 in 1968, but his lifelike remains have a place of honor at the museum.

Recently, the MOHAI staff discovered Bobo was born the year Ronald Reagan starred in the classic film “Bedtime for Bonzo.” So they’ve organized a Bobo Birthday Pajama Party. Admission is free if you show up wearing pj’s from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday. While there, you can see the American Presidency Exhibit and President Harding’s silk pajamas.

Star status: Seattle-based documentary producer/director Marla Williams was in Los Angeles last week, filming actor Martin Sheen. The “West Wing” star is hosting and narrating a two-hour PBS documentary, “Aleut Story,” about Aleuts who were forcibly evacuated and interned during World War II. The documentary has been three years in the making.

Williams, who’s not usually star-struck, makes an exception for Sheen. She says, “He’s the nicest man. He’s constantly joking and saying ‘thank you.’ ”

Cutting remark: Last week, Rik Katz took visiting relatives on a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island. Object: to show off the beauties of Seattle and Puget Sound. One unexpected sight on the ferry deck was a woman giving her two young sons haircuts.

Katz jokingly told the woman she should put up a sign and offer to do trims. Said the woman, “They wouldn’t like my quick haircuts much.”

Jean Godden: 206-464-8300 or jgodden@seattletimes.com

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