My Top Books About Artists and Their Gardens
Finding inspiration and companionship in the gardens of artists & creatives. A few favourite books + one video!
A pot of early spring snowdrops. Gouache on tan coloured paper.
What does your creativity do for you? Does it bring you delight? Satisfy your curiosity? Give a means of expression, connection, or healing?
I came across a beautiful mini-documentary a little while back. It’s an uplifting reflection on making art, gardening, and being human (see bonus video, below).
The observations about many artists having a proclivity to darkness, moved me. I appreciated the love and generosity, and acceptance, with which they spoke of this. Creating can be a way of working through those dark periods – of producing something of beauty that lights your way – and, perhaps, brings light and joy to those around you, too.
A number of the artists featured in the books, below, struggled with darkness in their lives. Is it a coincidence they turned to something tangible such as making art, creating and tending to a garden, walking and being surrounded by land and home of deep personal meaning and connection? I don’t think so.
I’ve relied on the act of creating many times throughout my life to move through difficult experiences. Only through making art, was I able to come to understanding, acceptance, and healing.
I've relied on the act of creating many times throughout my life to move through difficult experiences. Only through making art, was I able to come to understanding, acceptance, and healing.
A walk through an artist’s garden…
Gardening and art making are becoming inextricably intertwined in my life (see a few early garden paintings at the bottom of this post!). Gardening is tangible and methodical, which can be grounding when other things seem daunting. Tending to the soil and plants, watching the birds, feeling the wind and sun, and noticing changes through the seasons brings simple connection and joy.
There is such value in working with your hands – in seeing the gardens take shape, or the stack of paintings add up in the studio.
If you love to garden – or just be around gardens – I’ve got a few books to share. I’m curious, though… in what ways do you create? What does each do for you? I hope these books (and video!) will give you some joy, inspiration, and perspective on your own creative practices.
My FAVOURITE books about creatives and their gardens
Virginia Woolf’s Garden: The Story of the Garden at Monk’s House by Caroline Zoob. Photographed in my studio.
TOP BOOK: Virginia Woolf’s Garden by Caroline Zoob
This book is one of my all-time favourites. It’s filled with beautiful pictures and exquisite writing about the gardens, creative life, friends, home, and relationship of Leonard & Virginia Woolf – SO GOOD! The author shares her experience being a live-in caretaker on the property (for over a decade!) now that it’s open to visitors, and includes her own embroidery-based maps of the gardens.
Arguably, the gardens were actually Leonard Woolf’s gardens as he was the one who designed and maintained them, and this book is just as much about him (or even more) than it is about Virginia Woolf. I very much enjoy reading and re-reading about their lives together, their creative work, and creative friends! The book touches upon both the dark and light of their individualities, the nuances of their relationships and of the home they made together.
The photography is stunning, there are beautifully illustrated planting plans of several garden beds, as well as the author’s own embroidered maps of various garden areas. An all-round wonderful read.
I turn to it again and again for joy and inspiration.
The Artist’s Garden: Secret Spaces that Inspired Great Art, by Jackie Bennett. Photographed in my studio.
The Artist’s Garden by Jackie Bennett
I enjoyed reading a chapter of this book many nights before bed, over the winter months.
Each chapter features an artist and their garden, starting with Leonardo da Vinci, through Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frida Kahlo, and Salvador Dalí. Following that, is a section on several art movements/communities that revolved around particular gardens, including Monet and friends, William Morris, and the New England Impressionists.
Overall, there are profiles of several dozen artists with an overview of their life and work as a whole. As the title implies, there’s an emphasis on the home(s) and garden(s) that were most meaningful to them, and that inspired their art.
The book is filled with photographs of the homes and gardens, the artists themselves (and often their families), a map of each property, and several garden paintings by each artist.
I found it delightful how different the lives and gardens of each artist was.
Seed to Dust: Life, Nature, and A Country Garden by Marc Hamer. Photographed in my studio.
Seed to Dust by Marc Hamer
A little different from the others in this list… this book is a garden and life painted with words. Marc Hamer is a writer and gardener. His writing is beautifully poetic as he describes a year in his life as a professional gardener for an estate. He reflects on his life (past, present, and future) and the world that surrounds him as he tends to the gardens.
He describes the garden evocatively, sharing observations of its creatures and inhabitants, the plants, as well as the surrounding landscape throughout the seasons. He muses on the glimpses and small interactions he has with the estate’s owner.
The book has lovely linocut illustrations at the start of each section, as well as a beautiful design.
I enjoyed dipping into it a chapter at a time, much like poetry, in between things and around the edges of my life.
Overall, I found it to be a wonderfully reflective look at the life of a gardener, the twists of each of our unique life paths, and a musing on the inevitability of change and what the future holds.
BONUS VIDEO: Drawn into the Garden
This is a mini-documentary featuring artist/author/gardener Helen Stewart. It’s a wonderful short reflection on art and gardening as a way of moving through life.
I was particularly moved by the parts that spoke of many artists having a sensitivity to darkness. I appreciated the love and generosity with which they spoke of this. Overall, it’s a beautiful portrait of a creative life well-lived.
Watch 12-minutes of joy, beauty, and inspiration, below!
Watch Drawn into the Garden (YouTube)
A few early spring paintings of the gardens…
Potted sedums sit happily on the sunny kitchen windowsill, as the last of the winter’s snow melts outside. I started these from leaf cuttings last summer.
The last of the winter greens (leeks, green onions, lettuce, kale, arugula, spinach) in the cold frames. A few bare shrubs in the nursery, and a feeder for the birds.
Snowdrops gifted from a neighbour. I look forward to planting them once they’ve finished flowering – and to dividing them further in coming years.
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Go behind-the-scenes of how I paint from life, including my simple tools, process, demos – and several completed paintings!
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