Seedwise: The Art of the Garden

I enjoy finding quotes that inspire me, challenge me, and remind me not just how to garden, but why I garden. Each week I'll choose one to share with you that you can pass on to your gardening friends. If you have favorite quotes let me know and I'll add them to my growing garden of quotes!

This week's quote:

Art has been an essential nutrient in the soil of the Seed Library from the very beginning. The way I see it, there would be no heirloom seeds without artists. Just like the seed savers who created the diversity of our heirloom varieties, artists care about attention to detail and play with color and composition, flavor and form. Above all though, artists possess a brave spirit of creativity- noticing and collecting the many pieces of our lives and assembling them into visual feasts that feed us all.

Artists are cultural seed savers. Just as we select and save seeds on our farm, artists select which kernels of beauty, color, and form to keep alive and pass on to future generations. To celebrate this creative intersection of arts and agriculture, we commission contemporary artists to interpret a distinctive selection of the heirloom and open-pollinated varieties in our seed catalog. Each work of art becomes a unique seed pack.  Artists range from the undiscovered to the up-and-coming to the world renowned. Mediums include oil painting, paper, collage, encaustic, botanical illustration, printmaking, and more. The artwork celebrates the beauty, diversity, and cultural importance of the seeds held within each pack.

Each year we select a few of the original works to become Fine Art Prints. We're planning on revamping the way we produce the prints--and we're trying to find ways to bring their price down a bit. To help us get a fresh start to this process, we're making all remaining Fine Art Prints from the 2014 season 50% off--this week only!  There are only a few left. (In some cases only one!) So, if you've been waiting to buy a print to bring the art of gardening into your home, now is the time.

When we enter our gardens we enter the realm of the arts where order and chaos, beauty and gritty truth, combine to form a palette that is all our own. No two gardens are alike just as no two works of art are alike. We hope this season you will delight in the artistry of your garden and invite you to bring some of our artistry into your home.