Biography of Carol Johnson

Cole has no restrain in describing the beauty of all the elements found in the American scenery. He talks about the mountains, the sky, the streams, the sunset, waterfalls, all of which are overflowing in richness, full of magnificence, and unsurpassed by any other. For Cole the scenery and nature are subjects which must be present in the souls of every American. While he considers himself and even others underserving of “such a birthright”, he is thankful for the beauties given to us by nature. Cole suggests to his audience that the reason behind him painting natural scenes relates to the experiencing of a particular emotional response while doing so. This is a response which can only be compared to a “calm religious tone”, full of “tranquility and peace.” Witnessing the beauties of the American scenery, anywhere one goes, makes one realize how “the sublime and beautiful are bound together in an indissoluble chain. In gazing on it we feel as though a great void had been filled in our minds.” Cole places great emphasis on the importance for all members of society to learn how to cultivate “a taste for scenery.” This can be achieved by appreciating the physical beauty of nature and the ability of said beauty to provide mankind with a different perspective about life and with

For many, Fresh Kills conjures up images of the “World’s Largest Landfill” - bulldozers pushing mountains of trash, flocks of seagulls fighting over table scraps, and plastic bags fluttering in the wind. After the closure of the landfill, many hope that this image will be replaced by Fresh Kills as a public park. The international design competition, Fresh Kills: Landfill to Landscape was the first step in transforming this image. Six finalists suggested six different visions of how Fresh Kills could be re-imagined. The winner of the competition, Lifescape by the landscape architecture firm Field Operations, proposes a design that focuses on nature not only as the antithesis of landfill, but as an agent of cultural change. James Corner, founder and director of Field Operations, first asked how might landscape architecture be a force that enriches and informs people’s perception of nature in his 1997 essay Ecology and Landscape as Agents of Creativity. Through Lifescape, Corner proposes an answer to his own question, and the resulting design responds to Fresh Kills landfill past, and it’s post-industrial future as a park.

Classical landscape by Charles Sheeler is an exterior oil on canvas of the Estate of Mrs. Edsel B. Ford, Grosse Pointe Farms (figure 1) filled with deep, hidden irony. It was painted in 1931, and is based on a watercolor study. It’s a calm, clean, and serene painting that takes your breath away. It’s depicting a place someone would want to be in, a place where things get done, and a place where one can go to achieve this idea of the American dream. Charles Sheeler used American industry as a major theme of his art, his work “lends itself to an analysis in terms of geometric forms” he examines his subject matter so closely in order to fully understand the composition, the effect, and the design he wants to depict. Sheeler painted the plant’s exterior as an idyll, a beautiful, picturesque scene of the industrial age booming; however, in reality the United States was in the middle of the worst years of the Great Depression. Therefore, this painting done in Sheeler’s hyper-realistic artistic style is not actually depicting what the factory actually looked like.

In the essay, “A Literature of Place”, Barry Lopez expresses the importance of nature as it applies to human life. Through this he states that humans’ imagination are inspired by the scenery around them. Lopez revolves around a central perspective; Ancient american literature has always been rooted in nature. By acknowledging that modern human identity has been interpreted by nature, Lopez describes how the landscape of an area can shape the structure of the communities and how it can help with spiritual collapse. Nature writing has often been summarised by being one of the oldest threads in american literature. With our nation's aging one needs to reflect on their literary past; therefore, Lopez insists that we find our path to nature that

sensitive to the rhythm and nuances of living. Design should be seen as a configuration and

Humanity is but a facet of the sublime macrocosm that is the world’s landscapes. In the relationship between man and landscape, nature is perpetually authoritarian. In her free-verse poems, The Hawthorn Hedge, (1945) and Flame-Tree in a Quarry (1949), Judith Wright illustrates the how refusal to engage with this environment is detrimental to one’s sense of self, and the relentless endurance of the Australian landscape. This overwhelming force of nature is mirrored in JMW Turner’s Romantic artwork, Fishermen at Sea (1796). Both Wright and Turner utilise their respective texts to allegorise the unequal relationship between people and the unforgiving landscape.

In the book A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith, the concept of appreciating nature resonates throughout the novel. The first character introduced, Solomon Maclvey, is the great grandson of one of the settlers of Southwest Florida. Solomon constantly expresses his disgust with how developed Miami has become, although it was his family that became wealthy from developing Florida. As Solomon looks upon Miami in A Land Remembered, “Then they came to the La Florida Hotel, sitting like a stuffed frog, rising boastfully above all of them, thirty stories, with the letters MCI blazoned across its top. The

She states that individuals in her cohort tend to be individualistic and prefer their yards, both physically and metaphorically, to

Bar. After that she was a professor of law and through the experience she had gained

In chapters two and three titled “Sites” and “Movements” respectively, Howard makes the case that there is a “dialectical” relationship between the subject and the landscape (both social and physical) and

not just a yard. It is like an extended living room” (Walker 1). Mrs. Johnson speaks like she is

Three years ago, if someone asks me if I want to be a Landscape Architect, I would say No, I don’t even know what Landscape Architecture is. If anyone asks me the same question today, my answer is I don’t know what else I can be, other than a Landscape Architect.

My Wooded World Sheila Visingardi tells a story about how nature plays a huge part in her life. As a child she would sit in the beautiful, relaxing, woods and let her mind wander. It was as if the branches would call to her. (Lines 2-4) As the speaker grows older the woods have become an escape for her. The woods represent a sanctuary. This is where she feels inspired and creative, and also safe and at home. It is “a world full of imagination, creativity, resourcefulness, as well as inspiration.” (Lines 7-8)

We are all part of an interlinking system, a system that needs balance with humanity and nature at the forefront. As Designers it is important that we take self interest out of design and instead collaborate within our physical environment and make sure that from the get go, our designs should work around a collaborative system that has a wide breadth of professional fields and influence from existing infrastructures found within our world. Victor Papernak writes “eighty percent of the environmental impact of the products,services, infastructures around us is determined at the design stage.” I have chosen to explore collaborations within the natural world, our industrial ecology and social design as examples of how important working together with other professionals and the environment we live in are for the bigger picture. In Victor Papernak’s book Design for the real world, Papernak uses an anecdote to stress the importance of collaboration for successful design.

In Nature & Landscape: An Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics, Allen Carlson proposes that scientific knowledge can enhance our aesthetic appreciation of the natural world. He draws a connection between technical know-how used in the context of natural landscapes and art history or criticism in the context of conventional art forms. In either case, the viewer would find relatively more meaningful experiences of aesthetic appreciation than if one looked at a painting or landscape without any prior knowledge about it. Carlson endorses this point within his larger Natural Environmental Model, which asserts that though the environment is not entirely of our creation, it does not mean that we have to approach it without any prior understanding.