the parsley – what this blog is about
The landscape architect Thomas Church once described the way that landscape is viewed, dismissively, in relation to the important work of architecture: “the parsley around the roast.”
In more recent years, an acerbic comment attributed to landscape architect Martha Schwartz updated this slightly: that “landscaping” can become “the parsley around the pig.” And I don’t think she meant “pig” in the nicest possible way.
A running joke between architects and landscape architects is that the landscape architect is brought in to a project at the last minute to “shrub it up”. Or, put in the “growies.” The things around us that are beautiful and living are easily viewed as inessential frills, decoration, perhaps a delicate feminine pursuit to be indulged when budgets allow; something pleasant but essentially disposable, the first to go when priorities must be set. Nature, on the other hand, is something we might visit on the weekends, essentially apart in its own mental frame, that can easily be degraded or obliterated entirely by the slighest touch of human hands.
When I look around, I don’t see those easy divisions. I see the human world and the natural world inseparable, intertwined. Sometimes it is a lovely and civilized dialogue; sometimes it is a stormy love affair with endless, messy, entangled fallout; and sometimes it is a violent struggle to the death, almost unforgivable on both sides. I see comedy, tragedy, unintended consequences, and new possibilities. None of it is disposable or inessential.
I’ve included both words and pictures here. Neither completely explains the other, and both are far from perfect. Time is passing, and we all have better things to do than wait for perfection.
March 14, 2009
all words and photos copyright 2008-2010 by theparsley
(except that one time I put in a screenshot from google maps)
I include only my own photos of things I have seen with my own eyes
