Category: Lawn

This afternoon, Marcia Eames-Sheavly’s Art of Horticulture class (with a big assist from turf specialist Frank Rossi) created a second sod sculpture at Cornell’s Bluegrass Lane Landscape Research Facility, adjacent to the Cornell campus and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Course.

Now golfers heading down the 8th fairway are greeted by this surrealistic work just off the course grounds. (In fact, one rode over in his golf cart during the construction to find out what the heck was going on.)

This piece joins last year’s spiral mound in the growing sculpture garden.

My friend and co-worker Marcia Eames-Sheavly spent most of last week at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa. She and one of her former students built a sod sculpture on the grounds there with the help of Longwood staff and about 30 attendees of the American Horticultural Society’s (AHS) National Children & Youth Garden Symposium.

The story and more pictures at the Cornell Living Sculpture website.

Update 7/31/2008: Charlotte Kidd, one of the symposium participants, blogged about it as part of her NGA Mid-Atlantic Regional Report: Living Sculpture For the Young and Young at Heart

My friend Marcia Eames-Sheavly has been working with a local artist and a group of students this semester (with the students taking the lead) to create a piece of ephemeral art — titled Turfwork! — designed to be viewed from the air. The canvas is a one-acre field at our turf and landscape research facility and for ‘paint’ the students are using mulch, straw and black plastic to temporarily turn the grass yellow in places.

At right is a simulation one of the students created of what the work will look like to folks flying in and out of the nearby Ithaca airport.

If you’re in the area and want a ground-level view, the students will be around on Mothers Day from noon to 2 p.m. to answer questions. For more information, find details on Department of Horticulture website.