Life is Art; Art is Life

Andrea Cochran (andy) is a brilliant landscape architect. Yesterday Mel, Mike and I wandered up from the city (San Francisco) to the demonstration gardens built at the edge of sonoma and napa counties. It was cool how the austere landscape, simple really, attempted to soften the mind and clean the palette before we entered into the spaces created by some of the world's masters at modifying the landscape for us to feel emotion. As soon as I was in Andy's space it struck me; the stark contrast, the oddity of textures. It felt as though I was running on a canvas myself, playing in the space an artist works...comforted that I instantly became part of the art, not an intruder or a mistake. This feeling of belonging is what we developers need to create in our place making; a sense that we are in the canvas, contributing to the art itself.