Hubert Savage, Architect (1)

 

Eventfulness of form

 

 

December 2008: cross-gabling makes for an impressive frontage

 

When architect Hubert Savage designed a bungalow for his own use back in 1913, he was following his Arts and Crafts leanings by building it over a shallow crawl space. This move also meant he could sidestep damaging the site's natural contours, making them instead a part of the building itself. As a result, the house feels that it grows directly from the site it stands on. His decision to minimize the depth of this crawl space also made for a structure fitted to its surroundings in a way houses back in town - laid out in arbitrarily defined subdivisions, on typically narrow lots - didn't. It's true that Savage's choice also trimmed the considerable costs of a concrete basement from his bottom line (typically, ten percent at the time; more if, in order to excavate a basement, bedrock had to be blasted and hauled away). But Savage's choice was consequential beyond just sparing expenses: it allowed him, for example, on the garden (or west-facing) side of the house, to design a building that sitting more or less directly on the ground. In Savage's eyes that would have been a serious positive, and something he was aiming for.

 

Bungalow crawlspace under construction, USA somewhere, undated 

 

 

The photo above shows a bungalow crawlspace under construction (photo from Old Craftsman Style Homes, a social media group). It reveals just how simple this form of construction was relative to excavating a basement and pouring concrete foundations (just think of the equipment and material complexities that go with developing a basement on a rocky site). The photo above shows how brick piers were used to support the sills and joists of the house. If this all appears rather rudimentary now, that's because it was a technique that was under-conceived at the time (it was used in order to expedite getting on with constructing a building). Certainly it made for quicker and ultimately cheaper construction, but this often came at the cost of convenient access to the building's underside, as well as to a more-thorough proofing against undesirable effects, like rodents. Note, for example, how the brick piers shown above appear to rest directly on ground, either with only skimpy footings, or with none at all. Any moisture penetrating the crawlspace due to drainage issues would tend to be wicked up by bricks sitting in direct contact with ground - causing them, over time, to shift and spall. Savage's builders employed a similar technique to make the crawlspace on Grange Road: brick piers supporting joists and sills, coupled with curtain walls of stone to close up the perimeter. At some point, a number of additional posts were added, these resting on precast cement footings, which served to reinforce vertical support for the building.

 

 

Bungalow under renovation, over a low crawlspace, USA somewhere 

Tea-planter's bungalow, on a low plinth, with liveried servants (undated)

The shallow depth of the crawlspace certainly reinforced a horizontal aesthetic, resulting in a building set near the ground in true bungalow fashion (c.f. photo above). Traditional Indian bungalows, which the British 'borrowed' from the suburbs lying beyond India's teeming cities and gradually modernized, invariably came on a low plinth, giving them strong horizontal lines. As a result, bungalows still seem most natural when sited close to the ground. And Savage was obviously after just this look: a low building beneath a sheltering roof projected well out over its walls, designed in that way to emphasize proximity to ground. It was both fashionable, and rather exotic, to design in this way in 1913 - a method perhaps of differentiating the contemporary bungalow from houses that were more markedly Victorian - houses that tended to be taller (multi-storey homes with ceilings reaching as high as twelve or even fourteen feet, versus eight feet and a some inches of ceiling height in most bungalows).

 

1911 ad for Garden City: note the price-creep in the subsequent ad 

 

Garden City backers hoped a new rail line would trigger rapid growth

 

But whatever led the Savages to build a house way out in what was then a part of the boonies? Certainly it didn't hurt that parcels on quarter acre lots were being advertised with city water and electric lighting, as well as the promise of sidewalks and graded streets (see first ad, above, but note that such claims are missing in the 1912 ad). The real answer to this question undoubtedly had to do with the cheapness of quarter-acre parcels in Garden City, a suburban enclave comprising cleared land with a number of choice upland parcels (such as the holding acquired by the Savages). The investors backing this real estate development play hoped that Garden City would develop rapidly, courtesy of a new electric rail line (c.f. the ads above, from 1911 and 1912, picturing an Interurban Railway line that became operational in 1913). The Savages' land purchase allowed them to build a new home within walking distance of a stop along the new Interurban line. A location within walking distance of Marigold Junction made commuting downtown, where Savage's architectural office was located, eminently feasible. It also meant that the Savages got to inhabit a ridge-site dotted with mature oaks, at a comparatively short distance from downtown (roughly five kilometres). The opportunity cost of their purchase was unbelievably low relative to today's inflated land prices - if we assume the Savages acquired two premium upland parcels, which they could have done for no more than $1200 (ultimately, there was enough land to subdivide into three generous parcels, plus a leftover chunk that was added to Marigold Park). The cost of purchase, rendered in 2024 dollars, would have been just under $38,000 (if they paid full price based on the ads, which I doubt). These days, when a single RS-6 lot nearby is selling for as much as $800,000, this constituted a serious bargain!

 

 

Garden City Hall, built in expectation of rapid development, circa 1921

 

As a credentialed British architect with Arts and Crafts values, Savage was determined his new structure do minimal damage to the natural landscape (he knew exactly what the opportunity before him was actually worth). This was in contrast to the way things were being done back in town, where natural context wasn't allowed to suggest the orientation or design of a new house. The principal facts for consideration were the adjacent homes, sitting on streets of uniformly platted lots. But out in the pristine countryside in Saanich, on a large lot with abundant natural features, nature could be allowed to play a more formative, even a defining, role. Working in concert with the scenic possibilities, rather than disregarding them in favour of houses packed onto long thin lots like tinned sardines, presented Savage with the unique opportunity to design a structure that was more compatible, which ultimately meant he arrived at a worthier outcome. Savage's interest in building unobtrusively in the landscape, and making the existing scenery and natural contours provide a context for the new building, just happened to align with the natural hollow paralleling the ridge on which the bungalow came to be built. This physical feature, coupled with Savage's preference for a benign forms of construction, led him to convert the natural hollow into his crawl space.

 

 

Modern building site: cleared and levelled, emphasis here on convenience 

 

Following the design-lead offered by the hollow also enabled him to orient the building to optimize light-capture while taking maximum advantage of views. All Savage had to do, given the physical structure of the site, was limit the building's length to more or less the length of the hollow. Given that he was aiming to create a small, artistic bungalow anyway (a structure of just over 1550 square feet, all in) this limitation on building length didn't involve major sacrifice. Of course, there were knock-on consequences to siting a building this organically, among them a remarkable proximity to ground along the western and northern edges. But as we shall see from interpreting the outcome, there were many other advantages to this method of siting - all of them turned to account by an aspiring young Arts and Crafts architect.

 

 

Tiny crawlspace door inhibiting ease of access

 

While the shallowness of the crawlspace was arguably aesthetically desirable for the bungalow's overall look, Savage's choice of location for the access turned actually getting under the building into a chore (c.f. photo above, noting how small the access actually is). Placing it in a cramped location between the building and rising bedrock, right against one of those supporting brick piers (to the right, photo above) complicates both entry and exit. Some bungalows on crawl spaces dealt with the problem of crawlspace access by providing for entry from within, by means of a panel of flooring that could be lifted, placed in a corridor or even within a substantial closet. Savage however, for reasons that remain murky, preferred exterior entry, yet shied away from locating the door where the stone foundation was deepest - towards the southeast corner of the house - where the entrance might have been larger, thus simplifying the act of getting underneath the building; clearly, Savage the architect was keen to minimize the appearance of the access point, which he of course totally succeeded in doing! And so, the opening he left us is barely large enough to admit a full-sized adult. Worse still, because the door is located where bedrock rises towards the sill plate, one has to enter feet first, on the stomach, in order to be properly oriented inside (the crawlspace floor deepens out quickly once you are fully in, but as the ground falls away sharply, backing-in is mandated; and things have been further complicated by the recent addition of a cast-iron drain pipe around the portal, which has the effect of further restricting getting in and out). It's almost as if Savage thought he would never have to actually go down there himself! But of course, one does indeed have to get under the building, if only to access the plumbing and electrical systems! I cursed that small, awkward entry point (door-less when I moved there in 1988) through three-and-a-half decades of living otherwise quite comfortably in the Savage bungalow, because it made accessing the underside of the building a chore. And not least in emergencies, such as when, in the dead of winter, in the middle of the night, a pipe underneath bursts due to a sudden cold snap, and then has to be shut off, manually, from under the building - something that actually transpired during my first winter of inhabiting the Savage bungalow! Of course, I subsequently had the plumbing system under the building rejigged so shut-off valves were within easy reach of the crawl-space door!

 

Accessible Remoteness 

Alan Gowans, who wrote The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890 - 1930, notes that the type of house designed expressly to provide for greater human comfort first appeared in the new middle-class suburbs made possible by reliable forms of long distance transit (in the first instance, steam railroads in America). Later, electric streetcar networks, and  then the longer electric Interurban rail-lines that connected dispersed regional centres into networks, served to distribute these residential enclaves as suburbs on the periphery of urban regions right across North America. In addition to homes that suddenly incorporated novel provisions for enhanced creature comforts (like electrical wiring, telephones, indoor plumbing, bathrooms, hot water, etc, all of which happened to arrive in a compressed time-frame) Gowans says the existence of these rural rail-served enclaves also witnessed the birth of an entirely new type of dwelling - one designed expressly for these more-rural locales, with their more-generous natural landscapes. In the Grange Road bungalow, I believe we can see an example of this new dwelling-type emerging, built out in pristine countryside, with access to its relative remoteness enabled by a novel form of electrified rapid transit.

 

 

Tod Inlet Station, a stop along the Saanich Interurban Line, ca 1919

 

Scale model, interior of an Interurban Line car, courtesy of Aaron Lypkie

Downtown Interurban platform, which was across the road from Victoria City Hall

 

"The idea of a location far enough from the city to have rural qualities – open fields nearby, good-sized garden behind, and set off from the street by a front lawn – yet close enough for people to commute to the city to earn their living, was new." The rural lands opened to development by rail access prompted the creation of a novel house-type, a hybrid Gowans says that was "a combination of country and city home," one with "a basically horizontal look...with the long facade facing the street". In this sense, Savage's picturesque intentions for his own bungalow on its well-treed site just happened to mirror the fashion then occurring in rural suburbs right the way across North America. But being an architect designing a home for his own family to use, he could endow his version of the bungalow with bona fide Arts and Crafts attributes (for example, organic building placement, see above).

 

Artistic bungalow, gable-end facing the road, in Victoria (now stuccoed)

 

Savage bungalow, long facade turned to face Grange Road, rural suburban style

 

 

Not only did the length of the new house-type face the road (in what would soon become standard for suburban layout) but this novel form of placement stood in sharp contrast to similar buildings back in town, which were increasingly built with their gable ends facing towards the road, on more standardized and much narrower lots (see photo one, above). Having the length of the building turned towards the street in 1913 constituted an entirely novel look in domestic architecture, one that derived ultimately from the relative cheapness of the rural lands now conveniently connected by rail corridors to the urban core. "Neither city nor country houses, they represented a really new kind of dwelling, designed for a new, suburban kind of place." I would contend that this is precisely the sort of dwelling Savage imagined building out in the back of beyond in Garden City: an Arts and Crafts bungalow with all the modern conveniences, a building on a single level with a sheltering roof form and emphatically horizontal lines, a long cross-gabled facade facing the road, perched remarkably comfortably in a minimally altered natural landscape.

 

 

The cover of Garden Cities Of Tomorrow (1901)

 

The Garden City idea, as elaborated by Ebenezer Howard in his Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1901) didn't quite fit the local vision for Saanich's Garden City, which might more accurately have been called a 'garden suburb' rather than a city. It was from the outset envisaged as a place of residences primarily, and in no sense was it an effort to create a complete community, with industries and farms integral to its makeup (Howard's actual vision). The people who lived in Saanich's version of Garden City were expected to commute daily to downtown in order to earn their living, then retreat to a residential suburb at night. Which is exactly how the Savages envisaged using their new dwelling.

 

Government St. back in the day: note that gable ends are facing the road

 

 

 

Vancouver, West End, houses with gables facing the road, on narrow lots

 

The differentiation of suburban-style buildings  located in open countryside from their in-town counterparts was often further accentuated, Gowans notes, by the practice of designing markedly different facades for the front, sides, and rear of the house - an approach that individualized such buildings much more, adding considerably to their distinctive visual appeal (often such homes came with enhanced linking environments as well, such as paths, verandahs and sleeping porches). Houses in town, which were built on narrower, more standardized lots, tended to come with sidewalls designed similarly, with fewer windows because of their proximity to neighbouring residences. The Savage bungalow differed in every way from houses in town, but in this instance the process of differentiating facades was taken one step further, as Savage ultimately created a house with four distinctly unique facades (in this, whether conscious of it or not, Savage was in effect doing what Philip Webb (the original Arts and Crafts architect) regularly did. Of course, back when the Savages built their bungalow, there were no other neighbours nearby - all of that was yet to come, but certainly they expected it to happen, because the people moving into Garden City believed that the new rail link would trigger rapid settlement (as did the entrepreneurs who invested so handsomely in building the Interurban line). That's not the way things played out ultimately, however: the new rail line was so starved for customers that it had to be shut down in 1921, a victim of both the profound economic slump that began in 1913 and presaged the First World War, and the unregulated competition of the jitneys that immediately appeared in droves (see photo below). Suddenly, there were over 50 such jitney cabs active in the Victoria region alone (they had an association for lobbying purposes) cutting dramatically into the electric railway's passenger market. Ultimately however, this new reality may not have mattered much to the Savages, who got to enjoy a luxurious scenic hillside and design a unique bungalow as their own home. By skilfully manipulating both site and building, Savage managed to achieve a building with four entirely different facades that integrate into a convincing whole that remains striking to this day.

 

 

Lake Hill 'jitney' bus in the 1916 snowstorm: unregulated competition

 

Cross-gabled east-facing front facade, emphasizing horizontal lines

 

Savage opted to run his bungalow along the ridge defining the site (running south-to-north) which, among other things, allowed him to impart a feeling of grandeur to the building as seen from the approach path (the plain quality of the main gable roof form is on this facade relieved by a trio of cross-gabled bays stepping the building dramatically out into the landscape). The house (photo above) is evidently designed to emphasize horizontal lines, and thus stands in marked contrast to the more vertical, Victorian-era buildings that were built in town (c.f. next photo).

 

 

Bungalow (left) next to a taller Victorian-era house: horizontal vs vertical emphasis

 

 

Savage took full advantage of the upland site to generate long front and rear facades for his new  bungalow. Fitting the house intimately onto the site, he contrived a shallow oblong - just two compact rooms and a tiny circulation corridor for the back (north) half of the building, which he deepened somewhat at the south end, to accommodate a conservatory room-cum-utility hub on the southwest edge (which is gained by jogging the building's footprint outwards and a slight lift of the roof-line). The cross-gabled frontage is consistent with the traditional Tudor-era buildings from Savage's native England, an attribute he transformed masterfully into two roofed bays book-ending a welcoming verandah (see second photo below). This verandah, its substantial roof resting comfortably on top of a pair of tall tapered stone piers crowned with trios of short, chunky timber posts, impressively dresses the ridge site.

Fords Hospital, Coventry, England, built in 1509, cross-gabled roof form

 

Cross-gabled roof, dramatically advancing verandah flanked by roofed bays

The bungalow's south wall (its true gable end) differs totally from the street facade in its treatment, comprising an asymmetric assembly of window shapes, types, sizes and formats integrated into a coherent whole (as shown in the photos below: balanced overall, window placements dictated by the floor plan). In this wall Savage delivers a facade displaying what Nicholas Pevsner characterizes as the English genius for 'informal grouping' (c.f., The Englishness Of English Art).

South facade: an asymmetrical collage of shapes set in a horizontal matrix

South wall pictured in a more wan end-of-day light, December 2017

 

Along this wall, two projecting bays sport unusual fixed-pane leaded-glass windows, one (to the left, photo above) a transom over two leaded-glass casements, the other a standalone window composed of honeycomb-shaped (hexagonal) panes. Untypically for this house, the roofed bays also sport exposed rafter tails - for a touch of Craftsman-type styling - whereas the main soffits are all encased, hiding the rafters in a manner consistent with Victoria's Arts and Crafts style. The south wall here impresses the viewer as dramatically as the street facade, while exhibiting entirely different features (but continuing Savage's pattern of jogging the exterior wall planes for more lively movement). Due to the way the land falls away at the south-east corner, necessitating a much-deeper stone foundation there, the southern facade appears dramatically taller than the opposite, north-facing, gable end (photo below) where the building appears to rest directly on the ground, without a visible foundation, and is clearly only a storey high. 

 

The west wall differs dramatically from those facing east and south, here one storey high

 

The west wall roof lifted slightly to accommodate a garden door and back porch

 

Porch roof (left) lifted slightly in order to incorporate an array of utilities

The long west wall also steps outwards at the south-west end of the building (to the right, middle  photo above) with the roof lifted slightly in order to accommodate a rear door and what on our watch became a conservatory room with a window seat and views to the garden (you can make out the slight roof lift in the photo immediately above, enabling just sufficient height-gain with a barrel-vaulted ceiling to accommodate the enclosed porch and rear door). Note also how, on this facade especially (middle picture above) the bungalow sits remarkably near to ground, literally resting on the land along the northern edge (to the left, top picture above). This facade, again differentiated from the one facing the road, is however no less visually appealing. Here the architect explores the opposite impression given by the design of the street facade, exposing the main gable roof with its two chimneys, on a building that, because it sits virtually at ground level, declares itself to be only a single storey high (photos below). In contrast, the main gable roof is largely masked from view on the front facade, due to the land's elevation and the prominence of the cross gables. Here on the west side of the building, one steps out through a back door that feels remarkably close to the ground (because it is) then walks out into a protected garden that's set into an oak meadow.

 

 

Front facade with prominent cross-gables masking the main roof form

The west wall sits at ground level, leading out into an oak meadow

 

The photo below shows the northern facade of the house, which is architecturally similar to the south end of the house, but possesses less of the drama deriving from height and unique detailing. Many fewer windows appear on this facade too, obviously by design. At the north end, the natural hollow under the bungalow is shallow, so this part of the crawl space is somewhat inaccessible. This feature does however reinforce the bungalow's remarkable proximity to ground, making it feel as though it grows out of it and is fused with it. At some point early on, Savage decided to add a walk-in closet beyond the bedrooms located at the north end of the house. This addition explains the small shed-roofed structure that nestles against the north-facing gable end (c.f. photo below) a fact that Savage utilizes to further differentiate this facade from the other three. You can also see that Savage designed the walk-in closet to work with the site's natural contours, preferring to step the bungalow up the land-form rather than excavate the rock outcrop in order to keep things level (the modern building culture's reflexive choice these days would be to level the rock outcrop). This had beneficial consequences inside too, in creating a second level for the building's footprint that necessitated a substantial step-up in order to access the walk-in closet. The walk-in closet is shown as already existing by the time Savage drafted a first floor plan, in 1933 (ergo, the addition had to have been done prior to that date) - making for a seamless addition to an already complex house! Heritage consultant Stuart Stark remarked that the walk-in closet has art-deco features that make it slightly inconsistent with the design of the main building, but that it's still congruent with the building. Perhaps this was Savage demonstrating that buildings do grow over time, and that he was not afraid to demarcate a new building era?

 

 

North gable rising from ground, walk-in closet stepped up the landform

 

 

 

 

Step-up to the walk-in closet that was built later

 

Books For Looks:

 

Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture, 1890 to 1930. 

Nicholas Pevsner, The Englishness of English Art.

Ebeneezer Howard, Garden Cities Of Tomorrow, 1901.

 

 

 

 

 

Still Life, Close Up

 

 

 

"The force of a photograph is that it keeps open to scrutiny instants which the normal flow of time immediately replaces." Susan Sontag, On Photography
 

 

 

Watering can, sedum, pots: found still life

 

Photography gives us the power to isolate a scene from its context and by so doing, make it seem self-sufficient: above, a watering can, some plants in pots, and nature poking through and around. Instant still life composition, if you will. This ability to isolate scenes reveals endless subject matter in gardens, which while presenting as unified wholes comprise an array of scenic elements. Any number of them in fact, as it's quite arbitrary where one begins and another ends. But the camera's shutter resolves any ambiguity with finality, peeling off a distinct slice of reality and rendering it a self sufficient whole - a small world all on its own. And in these digital times, compositions can simply be re-framed with the lens until a pleasing amalgam of content and angle emerges. Now, why it is that one collection of objects suits the eye while another does not remains a mystery, a by-product of aesthetics, opportunity, and subjective intent. Also, the technical frame of the camera lens - the rectangular boundaries that can be set horizontally or vertically to bring objects closer or set them further back - causes modes of viewing to appear that aren't necessarily evident in the same way to the naked eye. As a recording device, cameras create a facsimile of reality and in so doing, effect entirely new possibilities.

 

 

Cluster of waxy, unopened cones snapped off by a windstorm, from an Atlas Cedar

 

Releasing the camera shutter determines the take with finality, and the beauty revealed (if any was sought) indeed lies in the eye of the beholder. I haven't reflected on where this urge to assemble objects into still life compositions, or to focus on patterns or details in scenery, actually comes from. But I seem always to have inclined towards it myself (my godmother painted still lifes and close ups, and I was always intrigued by her art) and I still enjoy searching for what appears to be a good cluster. These almost invariably have some innocence, humbleness or even a certain naievete about them, although marks of wear, indications of time's passage, and even signs of slow demise can for me model beauty in everyday things. I've also come to realize that my eye doesn't distinguish still life from close up photography very precisely, so these tend to shade into a continuum of effects. In this post I'm sharing a few of my own takes as eye-bait and to illustrate how even simple things - as often found together by chance as intentionally grouped into an ensemble - can yield, if not outright beauty, then at least compelling visual interest when focused upon and isolated. Of course, the momentary passing light they're seen in matters too, structuring the distinctive impression they leave - for in some sense, the collection of objects or block of patterns actually is the light the picture shows it in.

 

Snail completing a long stretch across the gap between paving stones

 

Sometimes you happen upon subject matter by chance, as when I noticed the snail above patiently crossing a deep gulf between paving stones. We only see these snails after a soaking rain, while the ground is moist enough that they can move about without dehydrating. This picture involves an element of chance insofar as it only existed for a moment: here the snail is just completing a prodigious stretch across the gap, drawing its shell back over an extended body in completion of its forward movement. Chance timing, while a great generator of pictures (this scene changed continuously, if in slow motion) is one source of still life, but I also enjoy using certain favoured objects as props in creating garden compositions. I deploy them to catch or model particular effects, as with the watering can in the opening shot in this post, or the weathered teak chairs below. They reliably impart specific impressions of light at a particular moment while displaying seasonal effects. The watering can confirms the nature of the scene portrayed, suggests human engagement with plants and implies something intimate about the garden itself. Back to that continuum of effects I mentioned: the weathered chairs below could be considered more scenic details than true still life.

 

Weathered chairs with emphatic shadow lines

 
Quite apart from my reliable metal watering can and the weathered teak chairs, regular garden plants themselves furnish limitless opportunity to frame photos as still life. Perhaps this practice bends or stretches the notion of still life even further, but catching objects at the moment the shutter releases does guarantee fusion into a relationship in the outcome. I instinctively search for clusters of objects combining elements of spontaneity and arrangement, so there is somewhat of a found quality incorporated into the picture (by 'found', I mean that some force other than conscious human intention helps achieve the arrangement, such as time, weather, or the chance placements of nature). The next shot illustrates this blend of intention and discovery: the rocks are of my choosing, but the blossoms are from a neighbour's wandering wisteria that has grown through the fence and into the scene (with a little encouragement from the gardener). I find this recognition game endlessly entertaining, with the added benefit of yielding pictures that embody particular moments. There is, I know, if not an artificiality, then at least an unreality to this, as all growing things are actually in motion and at any point fall somewhere between being born and if not outright dying, then dying back. But, so too are the fruits and flowers that appear in painted still lifes, and even the vessel containing them, captured in the painting's singular moment, likely winds up broken at some point down the line.

 

 

Placed rock cluster with found wisteria blossoms

 

To me, flowers themselves are among the most intriguing garden subjects for still life or close up compositions. Individual flowerings typically result in a brief but spectacular show of bloom, after which the plant's presence recedes to context. Below is a shot of a bearded iris that isolates an intricate bloom with fetching falls against a background of indistinct green tinged with yellow, amplifying the overall impression. I like using this technique of selective focus to create a context that's more colour than form and that has a sympathetic effect by placing the principal object in sharper relief. This makes the background more effect than distinct setting.

 

 

A single iris bloom makes a still-life composition

 

Below is another frame, taken on a different April day. Both the iris above and the tulip below are plants that came with the garden, which occurred some thirty years ago this spring. I've helped them continue to flourish here by periodically dividing and replanting them in freshened soil, and they have responded by reliably adding their simple beauty to spring's slow, captivating narrative. I've come to realize through close observation that here on southern Vancouver Island, with our temperate climate and slow, moist spring, spring-flowering plants often show early, middle, and late iterations, a fact that can be marshalled by gardeners to prolong the sequence of effects for daffodils, tulips, quince and lilacs, thus extending their floral impact far longer. I was unaware of this potential for floral differentiation while growing up in Ontario, where spring tends to come all at once and things flower simultaneously rather than in such distinct sequences. The tulip shown below is in the middle-to-late part of tulip-time on this site, helping push the season into a fifth or perhaps even a sixth week of species-flowering. In this photo, some purplish hints in the indistinct background enhance the delicate pink of the tulip flower. To botanize a bit, here we are playing around with varieties so as to express species-effects.

 

Tulip flower thrown into relief against a distant background

 

Another thing I enjoy exploring in plants-as-subjects is the vast array of impressions transmitted over the course of their flowering and finishing, from first appearance to full-on flourishing and even, for certain plants, extending so far as their beauty in running to seed. Below, an annual lunaria has set large seeds that are discernible within semi-translucent pods, shown while the plant is still alive, yet not that long before it expires and begins bleaching to fall grey. Lunaria, known commonly as 'honesty' in England, is also called 'money plant' in Asia, and 'silver dollars' in the USA. The latter two names refer to its thin, dried seed pods having a somewhat coin-like appearance. In 1884, Van Gogh painted a lovely still life of honesty's bleached pods in a vase with other floral elements surrounding it, but they are not made to resemble coins in his rendering. 

 

Lunaria sets its seed in coin-shaped pods that turn grey when it dies

 

Camas lilies are native to our slender peninsula on Southern Vancouver Island, a key landscape signifier in spring's slow, spectacular flourish. The quintessential meadow flower, camas thrust up dramatically under the native Garry oaks before leafing out, seeming to appear from nowhere (as bulbs do) sometime between late March and early April, initially strikingly blue-tinged as the blooms appear, but running towards a purple effect as the petals burst open. The shot below captures this briefly blue moment, just before the full floral explosion. I am particularly fond of these dramatic local lilies, reintroduced here to a garden contrived in a setting of mature oaks. Camas under oaks are a vestige of the extensive coastal prairie once maintained by controlled burning of underbrush by the Coast Salish peoples, the original inhabitants of Victoria and its environs. Ironically, it was their luxuriant spring flowering that caused British explorers to describe the first-nation-groomed coastal prairie as "a perfect Eden", never troubling to understand the role of human intention (or its utilitarian purpose, which was starch-yield) that caused the 'paradisial' effect. 

 

Camas flowers before the turn to purple

 

Close up and still life both allow us to observe a cluster of objects, or a pattern made striking by angle and light, and catch them in a framed view with the camera. Each represents a distinct moment in time, frozen by the frame. I obviously enjoy this association of objects through the lens, which is something that can be done equally well inside the house as out in the garden. The next still life composition catches an interesting combination of shapes, patterns and tones in filtered daylight, with the added complexity of reflection in a small mirror. The gentle softness of indirect exterior light gives this shot its mellow, peaceful quality.

 

 

Mellow light for a cluster of objects intensified by reflection in a mirror

 

Our house-and-garden combination offers many opportunities to frame scenes that capture elemental forces in changing lights. A decorated house with ample windows in every room admits light that suggests compositions based on clustered details. This capability exists because our eyes today are fully adapted to seeing photographs of fragments of things - parts taken to stand for the wholes they've been drawn from - that are still capable of invoking mood for the absent totality. We are able to enjoy even the discontinuity effected by the lens and the framing of the image, because our eyes are not affected by the arbitrary closure at the edges. We literally view subject matter  photographically when looking into a picture. 

 

 

Light and shadow effects as still-life

Our house receives a great deal of sunlight due to its placement on a hill combined with its many large windows facing east, south and west. One effect is that the inside receives changing light throughout the course of a day, modifying the mood in its interior spaces. This allows the framing of many views of patterns and clusters of objects, with scenery often glimpsed through windows as context (as above, looking west).

Recycled stained glass shed window, itself a still-life composition

I find light admitted through window glass endlessly fascinating as a source of images, here a stained glass window backlit by light from the west. This window, one of a pair acquired by chance at auction many years before the shed took shape in my imagination, had a long life prior to landing in its current position as part of another building. I bought the pair of windows based on the fanciful idea that the rather art-deco flower theme would go well in a garden structure that I designed to be observed from the house. As I wasn't actively contemplating building one at that moment, it turned out to be a great choice when the idea finally came to fruition. 

 

Cluster of chive flowers in a retrieved discarded aspirin bottle

 

One day I was taken by the simple beauty of some chive flowers in an old aspirin bottle viewed in fading afternoon light, against a backdrop of deco tile in our bathroom. The aspirin bottle was retrieved from a midden in the yard, which served as a final resting place for glass goods in the days before garbage pickup in this locale. I unearthed it while turning over a garden bed. The combination comprises a humble still life of found and grown objects, reflecting nature brought inside and placed in a piece of the inside world that was retrieved from outside purely by chance, having been tossed there some decades prior.

 

Montbretia's flowers bring a foretaste of autumn's fiery colour palette

 

Many garden still lifes or close ups convey a background sense of the season they represent - flowers flower in a particular window in the unfolding garden season and imply their place and time in the sequence of bloom. Even the quality of the light itself can be seasonally revealing. The picture above is of Montbretia, which here flowers in later summer and prefigures the fall colour shift. However, seasonality can be made to play an even more explicit role in defining the overall composition. Below is an example of snow's presence truly defining a scene, in a rather sombre way here due to the dullness of the light on that day. This lack of punch in the light actually reinforces an abstract, monochrome quality, making the scene appear almost black and white (b+w photography amplifies lines of force and spatial presence in images) but for the hint of mustardy yellow on the south face of the limbs and the terra cotta chimney intruding below. 

 

Monochrome light, snow on oak limbs, chimney

 

Winter of course presents numerous opportunities for close ups, but snow remains difficult to convey with a camera. Most often it simply over-exposes the image, becoming indistinct and almost bland thereby. But unique conditions of light occasionally combine with unmodified snow effects to produce stellar results. In the following photo, the house's end gable defines the composition, the snow drifts softening its overall architectural effect considerably. The result conveys a sense of home as a cozy refuge.

 

Freshly fallen snow weighs down plants, softening the massive gable end

Just as snow reliably conveys wintry conditions, fallen leaves signify autumn's decisive impact on plants. As the production of chlorophyll comes to an end triggered by the shortening days, foliage-green gives way to underlying pigments that are masked during the growth phase. This picture to me catches the warmth of fall coloration and the sculpting of the leaf as it has dried out.

 

Nothing says 'autumn' like fallen leaves, here a big leaf maple

 

Freezing rain in winter can also lend dramatic impact to the appearance of plants, giving even contextual plantings renewed potential to serve as subjects for still life. Seeing the physical world through a glazed coating is visually astounding, rendering the ordinary elements of everyday life freshly intriguing to observe. The aftermath of freezing rain makes me want to go wandering in the wonderland of special effects, seeking after visual interest and knowing that I won't be disappointed (despite heightened personal risk). The next shot is of a clump of ornamental grass inclined under the weight of a thick coating of ice, a structure within a solid that's totally on view.

 

 

Freezing rain imprisoning grass in a coating of translucent ice

 

The next shot, taken after the same ice storm, shows how universal the coating of frozen rain actually is, here emphasized by thin strands of page-wire fencing. Brilliant sunshine reflecting from the glassy coating brings the ice right up to the eye, which notices the rolling quality of the horizontal wire (traces of the spool it came from) more than it otherwise would. I like the simplicity and relative peacefulness of this composition, which takes a moment to come into sharp focus.

 

Page-wire fencing coated with frozen rain emphasizing forms

 

One winter day I happened to be working in the back garden, collecting debris shaken loose from our oak trees during the latest windstorm. I was taken by the array of bits and pieces of lichen, mosses and fungi strewn across the lawn, sometimes appearing on a piece of oak branch and invoking the unique colour palette of these wet-season organisms. So I pulled an assortment of random bits together on a garden bench, and from that derived the following shot as a creative clustering of this aerial debris. The picture frame 'notices' it by capturing the concentrated grouping, something our eye wouldn't make appear in quite the same way without this act of isolation. I enjoy its odd shapes and colours immensely - the aquas especially!

 

Found-debris downed by a winter storm, fungus and lichen now assort

 

Many garden plants interact uniquely with their environment to create special effects. For example, seasoned gardeners often notice the particular way that rain pools on a foxglove's tubular flowers, forming distinct droplets as gravity gradually draws the moisture towards ground. Something about the flower seems almost to repel the water, forcing it to collect into droplets. You can almost feel it moving downwards despite being frozen into a still picture. These effects are transient, so if you're to catch them you need to keep your camera ready to hand. I like to garden that way myself, with the camera nearby. Then, if something suggests itself to the eye, or the light suddenly turns transcendent, the means of recording the passing effects are ready to hand. As often as not, that will simply become a still life composition. Or, is it a close up? Or maybe a detail?

 

Raindrops clustering on foxglove flowers

My point is simply that even the humblest of gardens, say an assortment of pots on a deck or a small terrace, offers opportunities to render plants into such still life compositions. Van Gogh did it memorably with many plants, including clusters of picked flowers in a vase. These paintings, now famous, remained obscure in his lifetime  (as did most of his oeuvre), but must have given him intense satisfaction. Look around your world and you'll see such opportunities lying everywhere. Go ahead and compose. It's a way to preserve a fragment of the flow of time for future contemplation. And it's good fun.

 

Campanula (bell flowers) after a rain

 

Affectionately dedicated to my long-departed godmother, Molly Parbery, whose still life painting hung on my bedroom wall while growing up.