Inspiration | Interpretation - A Garden Faucet
When the work, words, home, style, talents, or values of someone or something else makes your breath catch, stirs a longing, or causes you to lean in with curiosity, this is simply part of them reflecting part of you. Their life and work is not a prescription or formula, but an invitation for you to live fully yours. Take that awakening, that curiosity, and see what it becomes in your unique life.
It’s been a diary of memories and mental notes, of my grandmother’s gardens, and my mother’s gardens, the gardens of family friends. Of the nursery I worked at when I was young, transplanting seedlings from flats into cell packs. Of the backyard greenhouse of my master gardener friend in Alaska, where three of us would gather in April, when snow still piled the ground, where we’d stand in the warmth, planting and chatting while swiping bites of fresh spinach from the bed dug into the ground at our feet, while ducking our heads around cucumbers dangling from where they were growing in baskets hung from the ceiling. Of the dahlias exploding from a narrow bed that lined the east wall of the Methodist Church in the small town we lived in once, their blooms the size of dinner plates. Of gardens I walked through not so long ago, soaking in the beauty of roses, boxwoods, and lavender, with gravel underfoot and fountains in the background, studying the details and composition, seeing how it was done.
Curiously, you never know how the inspiration you’ve gathered and the experiences you’ve had will manifest one day later on. It’s like a present, you just have to wait and see.
Then, one random day, you might come across a listing for a vintage brass nozzle, and a wave of inspiration will tumble forward and land, and there you’ll be with one fully conceptualized piece of the garden plan - a sink/wash station/prep area. Something of a chef’s kitchen-meets-shallow-European-stone-sink, in the context of the garden. A rustic station made from weathered wood, stone, and metal - for watering and washing, for planting and working.
Interior design by Amy Aidinis Hirsch, photo by Greenworld Pictures, Inc
The idea is, with a length of garden hose and some brass or copper pipe and rod, the nozzle will become part of a spring-neck faucet (thankfully, I know a guy). The shallow sink will likely be made from rough concrete (I know another guy), and the sink base from weathered wood (yes, I know a guy for that, too).
And there it is, from inspiration to interpretation, a garden faucet by way of a vintage brass nozzle.
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Inspiration / Interpretation is a series meant to encourage us all. Next time you see an inspiring human, or inspiring thing, let it wake up the best in you. No inferiority or lack. No inadequacy or comparison. Just inspired curiosity, discovery, passion, you.