The Miller Library welcomes Elizabeth Neuman with her prints depicting Northwest birds and their habitats. From the artist's statement:

My watercolored block prints are inspired by encounters with birds of the Pacific Northwest, either resident or passing through during migration. Experiences along the coastal beaches of the Olympic Peninsula, summer camping in the Methow Valley, wandering local parks and nature preserves, visitors in the garden, utility pole guests ...Whatever the inspiration, my block prints continue to focus on the multitude of birds and habitats of the Northwest. There is a truth in the eye of the bird, wonder in its flight, grace to be found in its presence.

The artist will be in the library during the Friday night opening of the Garden Lovers' Book Sale, April 4 from 5-8 p.m., as well as on Saturday, April 5 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. View her exhibit during Library open hours April 3-29.

With a surprising account of how elements in many gardens showed the owners’ political affiliations, often with the Whig Party, Tim Richardson lures readers from the temptation to skip his text and just admire the many elegant photos. The book presents in chronological order a group of English landscape gardens developed in the 18th century.

Later in the century political elements disappear from these gardens. Richardson shows the changes in garden design from an easing of formality in the first part of the century to the even less formal designs of Lancelot Brown in midcentury to the curated wildness of the Picturesque style at the end. 

A landscape garden includes “episodes,” various areas with a particular focus, often a statue or a structure such as a temple or hermitage. Our current concept of garden may be stretched by knowing that dozens of buildings were integral to the design of some of these gardens.

Part of the change of design over the years was from an episode that was intended to be experienced for itself to, in the Picturesque era, a location framed so one could look out to a distant vista or a nearby “natural” scene such as a carefully engineered waterfall.

Juicy biographical tidbits about the owners of these gardens add to the flavor. John Aislabie, for instance, turned his attention to developing Studley Royal, his marvelous Yorkshire garden, only after he was disgraced for financial shenanigans leading to the South Sea Bubble in 1720, which caused an international financial crisis.

Excellent photographs and garden maps combine with this lively and engaging text to make The English Landscape Garden a very worthwhile read.