The ground we stand on.

This page will offer my land stewardship philosophy in word and art.

Terra Nova inspires artwork by Mott Jordan for Bike to Work Day, 2000

Here’s a piece by Kenneth Patchen.
I think Patchen had it right. I believe in approaching earth stewardship from a solid foundation of ethics.
We would really have to watch our step if the ground could just get up and leave us with nothing more to stand on than what we have so bloody well stood for up to now.

This is a good place to slip in my collection on odd quotes about landscape gardening. I found an obscure quote from one of my favorite musicians Brian Eno in an interview.
He said…

“Landscape gardening is a very underrated form of sculpture”

One of my mentors was Alan Chadwick. The man who started the garden that today is the U.C.S.C. Farm and Garden. Here is a couple of things he said with a picture of the man himself.

“The Gardener does not create the Garden. The Garden creates the Gardener.”

“We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays through and around us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars”

Here’s a quadracycle we had custom built and used for a few years.
It is now reincarnated as our company sign in front of our shop. Now that’s art!

Sure, Leroy, there is a kindness of willing and a cruelty of won’ting. Still no dog ever doubt his dogness. The maple tree never mistake himself for any other cuss. But a man, who is us? Kenneth Patchen