Winter Garden Art Installation
Winter. It’s killing me. Beyond hurting my osteoarthritis and making me cold, winter is dark and dank in the northern states. We need some creativity, some love, some color. That’s it – COLOR! Lots of creative colors! How about weird and wonderful glowing disk garden art which makes people stop and stare with curiosity? Last summer I met the team from Cazador-del-sol, a company that has created a very unique art display for gardeners around the world. The creative art sculpture is a single glowing disk that is placed atop a long pole. The Cazadores-del-sol are inspiring and fascinating whether as a single suncatcher or as Sunfield.
Cazador-del-sol Sunfields is a collection of the special suncatcher art disks put together in close proximity to create a large field of display. When I saw the above two photos [credit Cazador-del-sol.com] of Cazador-del-sol Sunfields in Europe, I became fascinated and ordered several different sizes from the manufacturer. What if we could put a display up like this in an ordinary gardener’s backyard or vegetable garden? Would winter be transformed by the display? Would vegetable gardens look interesting and different and… well… creative?
First I wanted to start with a winter backyard art installation of the glowing disks with the hopes of capturing snow and glow together. In order to do this, I had to set a Sunfield up on a warm day in late fall on my no-mow grass backyard. I chose a multi-color disk Sunfield using the Suncatcher-Disks (diameter 8”) with the swinging rod (length: 5′ 7”) (see the top and middle photos). Each disk is mailed flat, so it is easy to order and install from Cazador del sol.
Next, I had to wait for snow. I live in a suburb of Chicago, so it didn’t take long before we were covered in several inches of the white stuff (see below). The effect is interesting and strange – if you stand next to the field the glowing disks tend to be at my eye level, so I see color strangely glowing in a place that it is not typical to see a glow and it is interesting to observe. I considered the garden art a true success when truckers who could see the glowing art above the fence line from the street behind my home started ringing my doorbell and asking me “What the heck are those glowy-thingamajigs in your backyard?”. I will post in the spring how the taller disks survive outside all winter and will actively be devising my next garden art goal: to place different size disks in varying garden beds in order to see how the colors transform the beds artistically. Wish me luck!
