garden projects

Life Cycle Installation, 2005, Center for Innovation, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND

Kathryn Lipke. Bronze Seeds from “Life Cycle” garden

Kathryn Lipke, garden plan for “Life Cycle” garden

The sculpture garden grew out of a desire to create a place where art is integrated with the four-season life cycles of prairie grasses,  forbs and wildflowers.  The garden is a place where people can engage in discussions while strolling or sitting quietly in contemplation.  It offers space to experience the tension between imaginary dimensions and the constraints of space; it encourages study, solitude, and friendly encounters.  The garden, like a book is perishable.  And paradoxically man relies on the perishable to convey his desire for continuity and re-growth through the regeneration of the landscape.  This is a place for people to develop ideas and allow dreams to soar while offering a dialog between art and nature.

 

Prairie Garden,  2000, installed on the Court House lawn, Cooperstown, North Dakota

prairie garden

Prairie Garden, 2000, commissioned by the GK Gallery in Cooperstown, North Dakota for a site on the lawn of the Court House ( a historical building) A collaboration between Kathryn Lipke,born and raised in Cooperstown, North Dakota; Ines Diedrich, Germany and Leena Ikonan, Finland both sculptors invited as representative of the Scandinavian and German immigrants to North Dakota.The garden was destroyed in 2012 to make way for a new court house building.

Materials: prairie rocks and boulders, prairie wild flowers with a seating element and sculpture of a seed sprout  carved by the artists of a local river oak.