Tell me, gentle flowers Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits vou? Dream on, sway and frolic while you may in the gentle breezes of summer. Tomorrow a ruthless hand will close around your throats. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea flowers
The man of the pot In the West the display of flowers seems to be a part of the pageantry of wealth—the fancy of a moment. Whither do they all go, these flowers, when the revelry is over? Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorselessly flung upon a dung heap. ...Much may be said in favor of him who cultivates plants. The man of the pot is far more humane than he of the scissors. ...Anyone acquainted with the ways of our tea and Flower Masters must have noticed the religious veneration with which they regard flowers. They do not cull at random, but carefully select each branch or spray with an eye to the artistic composition they have in mind. They would be ashamed should they chance to cut more than were absolutely necessary. It may be remarked in this connection that they always associate the leaves, if there be any, with the flower, for their object is to present the whole beauty of plant life. In this respect, as in many others, their method differs from that pursued in Western countries. Here we are apt to see only the flower stems, heads as it were, without body, stuck promiscuously into a vase. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea flowersgardens
If removed from the place for which it was intended A flower arrangement by a tea master loses its significance if removed from the place for which it was originally intended, for its lines and proportions have been specially worked out with a view to its surroundings. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea Conditional art flowers
barnsworthburning.net A Website by Nick Trombley barnsworthburning.net What this site isColophonContact meShortlist of interesting spacesBehind the scenes Five barns worth burningExtract (n)Kicks Condor: barnsworthburningNodal pointsMonoskop collectionsnotetakingconnection
What this site is A kind of commonplace book. A kind of digital garden. A kind of Zettelkasten. The front end to a brain. Part research, part dissertation, part art project. A kind of essay, in the sense that it is an attempt. ...but at what? What is a commonplace?A Brief History of the Digital GardenZettelkastenare.naHighlighterThe Art of Looking SidewaysReading DesignEssayerGlaspMaintenance and Care gardens
Colophon airtable stores the majority of the content for the site. the front-end is written using svelte and its companion toolset, sveltekit. it is hosted as a digital ocean app. figma was used for some of the design – the rest was done in code (as I increasingly believe it should be). it is typeset with IBM plex sans Designing with code
Contact me You can reach me using this Airtable form – I would love to hear from you. I'm also on LinkedIn.
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