I wandered over to The Blanton for the first time enticed by Tom Spencer‘s lecture “The Landscape of Memory”.

Aside: echoing the sentiments of others, my first impression of The Blanton was “Where is the door!?!” Finally finding it and entering my second impression was “Where’s the art!?!” Do you get the feeling walking into that emptiness that you’ve been sucked into a white hole? Are they going to do something with all that space?

Tom’s lecture was packed. As usual, he spoke eloquently on garden design–of gardens as both personal and transcendent spaces. You make a garden your own by weaving memories into it, by including iconographic elements from your life. (After 14 days of triple-digit temperatures in August, my yard evokes memories of the desert southwest in which I grew up. But this is not by design.)

Tom’s TV series Soul of the Garden is available on DVD via KLRU: Austin Now. Long video clips are viewable online.