Pearl Fryar's Topiary Sculptures: The Evolving Art of Garden Sculpting

Amongst our travels, we've yet to find more than a handful of noteworthy "living garden" sculptures as vibrant and as rich as the ones made by Pearl Fryar. A native to the South Carolina, Fryar combines the fine art of sculpture with his love and passion for horticulture and life. What's more astounding about Fryar's serene garden is that much of the actual "art" came from little seedlings that were rescued from piles that were disposed of by others around the land. This act of giving a future to these plants and creating in them an artistic splendor makes Fryar a a true "green" artist in our books. With all the environmental movements going around lately, let's take a lesson from this pioneering artist turned horticulturist and work green when creating our wonderful art concepts.

Today, the Pearl Fryar Topiary garden has over 300 individual plants that mostly showcase this man's fervor for garden sculpting. The 2006 documentary called "A Man Named Pearl" exhibits his extraordinary journey into the field of re-styling nature to give it a fighting chance against the sometimes rough hand of society. Bothe the LA Times and the Wallstreet Journal have past encounters with Pearl, and neither can look back on him without simply remembering the majesty of his creations.


Fryar's web-home, can show you just how powerful one man's dynamic character can be. here's a screenshot showcasing Pearl himself, trimming away at one of his "living" sculptures. (Photo Credits go to www.pearlfryar.com) Keep being green everyone!

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Stacy Levi's Ecological Patterns in Contemporary Art

It's a rare thing to chance upon an artist whose passionate about the ways of the natural world. With several nature-inspired works such as River Eyelash ( 3,000 painted buoys responding to wind force on a river), Stacy Levi is an ecology patron who's also a one of a kind sculptor. It's not enough to say that academic taught her all of what she knows about art, because just as many artists often find their true calling through spontaneous emotion and activity, Levi found hers through the environment's gravitating influence on humanity. Many of her works sit atop river streams or woodlands and depict a rendering of nature in an raw form of grace and power.

Sculpture by Stacy Levi , Photography by Lionel Gruenberg

Her sculpture project in Mineral Springs Park, Seattle, is called Cloud Stones. These are made up of incredibly high gloss (polished) black stones that are in the shape of smooth domes. Text is inscribed by sandblasting material onto the domes and they tell the type of weather which cloud formations bring. White domes in the area also create a soothing and prominent evening presence and their color contrast with the black stones gives them more of a vibrance at dusk when the shadows return to the landscape.

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