Art, inspiration in the garden

For Digital First Media

Recently I wandered through the neighborhood where my friend Mary Ann Mack lives. I don’t go that way often, so I hadn’t seen Mack’s street-side garden in quite a while. On this particular day I was greeted by the clematis twining around her mailbox post and a large clump of spider flowers.

Under an overcast sky that promised still more rain, it was cheery to see the pink and white blossoms of the spider flowers (Cleome hassleriana), at this point in the season grown tall enough to be nearly at my eye level. They seemed to lean their heads toward me, swaying at the tips of their stalks, looking like nearsighted people straining to see better. Below the flowers were tier upon tier of the signature, branching seed pods that give rise to another of Cleome’s common names: Grandfather’s Whiskers.

The clematis vine still bore several deep purple blossoms, but the main feature of this plant was the profusion of tousled-looking seed whorls, all with their champagne-colored tufts spiraling counter-clockwise like little mop-heads.

Looking at the clematis and the cleome I wondered if children’s author Dr. Seuss had ever seen either of them. (Look at the photo of the clematis seed heads and an illustration from “The Lorax,” and you’ll see what I mean.) I had always thought that Seuss just had a wild imagination. Was it possible that his inspiration came from the world around him? Had he seen in nature things that might have inspired some of the zany-looking characters that illustrate the pages of his stories?

In wondering about Dr. Seuss, I remembered something that one of my history teachers talked about in class years ago: the contrasts in the artwork of the Native Americans of the eastern North American forest and the typical designs of those who lived on the Plains. The decorative work of one featured floral and vining motifs while the embellishments of the other were characterized by circles and lines that captured the spare essence of sun, moon, and open grassland. It made sense to me that one’s environment would shape one’s art, that artists of every age—especially early artists—would draw the things they see around them.