Belonging

Dd's magic in the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden

By Paul Clarke Photography

April 4^th, 2021

I'm kicking myself that I'd never heard of this place. The Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden has been running for nearly 40 years, and hosts a wonderful breadth and depth of work.

My friend Dd (Deborah) Davies creates amazing sculptures, and sent me to take some photos of "Belonging" at the Sculpture Garden. Woven from willow, it floats above these beautiful gardens.

I didn't really know what to expect.

The absolute joy of this work is that you see it in so many different ways. Alien vehicles, wasps' nests, baubles... I won't attempt to describe, but just show some of the different interpretations I found.

The Gardens are beautifully laid out, and you can see Belonging from many different places—all offering their own takes, and all suggesting alternative meanings.

For me, this is great art, because it blends, and stands out; it feels organic and in place, but also jarring.

The light in the Gardens changes very quickly, and—with spring flowers bursting out—it was a wonderful time to visit.

You should go and see it.

I matched its other-worldliness with some special lenses for the occasion: an 85mm Petzval—not as old as it looks, but based on a very old lens design. It produces a very distinctive look, and I can insert brass apertures with different shapes punched in them to vary the quality of the photo. I used round ones, and also one with a five-pointed star aperture. See if you can spot hints of it in some of the photos.

The second lens is another classic, revived and built to fit a modern Canon. The Primoplan 58mm f/1.9 is a fully-manual lens that throws its own character into the photo. I shot with generally wide apertures from f/2.8 to f/1.9.