Donated to the Peconic Land Trust in 2008 by Harry Neyens and Jim Kilpatrick, 5 acre Bridge Gardens celebrates the tension between opposites.
The garden’s landscape is a push and pull between highly culitivated and manicured garden rooms juxtaposed with the purely natural. Bridge Gardens also is the setting for a large scale sculpture exhibition entitled Uncommon Ground III created by world acclaimed artists. When you add the tension between man-made beauty and the beauty born of nature into the mix, a visit makes for a fascinating experience.
Take a look.
The sculptures by Steve Tobin particularly emphasized the contrast between man and nature. His pinecone was the most realistically “natural” sculpture on display. Compare that to “Syntax” where he celebrates man’s spoken word.
Sometimes nature and man-made are in perfect harmony, like with this manufactured lily pond, and the hanging sculpture by Michael Enn Sirvet, which almost seems like an extension of the tree.
Other times there are jarring moments. The shape of Tobin’s bone wall sculpture is very organic and seems to work right with the flow of the landscape, until you look closer and realize the sculpture is a pile of human bones.
Proving the truth in the words that you need to get out from behind your computer, I stumbled across the perfect design solution for my own yard in Montauk.
Larry has been wanting to clean up all of the brush on one side of our yard. You can no longer see (and cut to force) the wild forsythia that used to separate our yard with the neighbors.
I love the idea of a series of rooms created by three pergola structures and linking beds, like I saw at Bridge Gardens. Something similar would be a perfect path to our lakeside patio.
My yard: imagine a series of pergolas along a cleaned up border!
Bridge Gardens is a hidden gem. The sculpture exhibition is on through September 9. It is well worth braving the traffic if you are out east.
All photos by Lynn Byrne for Decor Arts Now.
