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Seminar/Event

Dreamscaping

Marcia Donahue & Brandon Tyson

Sunday September 26th at 11:15 am
Ayers Hall, L.A. County Arboretum & Botanic Garden

For the first time, sculptor Marcia Donahue and garden designer
Brandon Tyson will enthuse in public about their collaborative
work on four Bay Area gardens. Ardent devotees of Flora, Marcia
and Brandon are inspired to a froth, by plants and by each other.
Using their formal art training and deep knowledge of horticulture,
they realize their visions by marrying plants with sculpture,
gleefully wielding form, color, pattern, and texture. Their aim is to
exhilarate everyone with their opulent compositions. Join them as
they trace the paths of thought, fantasy, and circumstance by which
they conjure distinctive and amusing dreamscapes. For a preview,
see the July/August 2009 Garden Design magazine, page 50.

Brandon Tyson

Brandon was born and raised in the Deep South to a family with roots in the
timber industry. As a garden designer, he jokes that it's his karmic duty to
spend his life replanting trees in an attempt to pay back some of his family's
debt to Nature. Fine art training led to a career in fashion and textiles, but 25
years ago he returned to his first passion, creating gardens. Tyson is, "one of
Northern California's most sought-after designers" (Ken Druse, The New
York Times), who "knows exactly how far to push the boundaries, which is
what gives his gardens their dynamic tension and sense of play" (Jenny
Andrews, Garden Design magazine). Cutting-edge horticulturist Flora
Grubb says of his work, "Although his gardens are beautiful even to the
uneducated eye, most people don't realize just how innovative his planting
plans are on a horticultural level. His dense, plant-driven collector's gardens
are as perfectly executed as his sparse, modern architectural ones."
Brandon's design practice is driven by a profound curiosity about the
connection between art and nature, and the desire to create gardens for his
clients which both enhance their lives and allow him to communicate his
unique vision. He also enjoys sharing his creative passion by leading tours
of his work and by lecturing for national organizations, and is an occasional
contributor to Pacific Horticulture. Based on the West Coast for over 40
years, he has recently begun work on a new garden near Savannah, Georgia,
which has allowed him to reconnect with his horticultural heritage. At this
symposium, his Dreamscaping presentation with artist Marcia Donahue
brings Brandon full circle in another way. Their collaboration returns him to
the world of fine art, and allows him to explore again their mutual love of
form, texture, and color.
Each

Speaker

Marcia Donahue

Marcia is a sculptor and devotee of Flora who makes plant-inspired works
for public and private gardens. She considers her work to be garden jewelry,
the cherry on the garden sundae. She has been making, enjoying and sharing
her own garden in Berkeley for 32 years and opens it to visitors on Sunday
afternoons. Her garden and sculptures have been much photographed and
published in books and magazines; she is an occasional contributor to Pacific
Horticulture. Her collaborations with her kindred spirit, wonder worker
Brandon Tyson, are some of the most exciting projects she has done so far.

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