Colorado Art Studio

Site Impression Quilt
Originally uploaded by cmg art.

Last fall, I was attending graduate school at the University of Colorado at Denver studying landscape architecture. I took a leave of absence from the program in January because I was so fatigued. I blamed it on school, but some things led up to the need for a break. We were in the middle of a year long house remodel that extended into the semester because of unforseen events that were out of our control. Then we moved from a rental back into our house right before mid-term jury and exams. I was already carrying a large work load including trying to continue to be a good and involved mom. I mention all of this, because I am considering going back to the program part-time.

Needless to say, by the middle of December, I was out of juice and had all I could do to get through the day. Fast forward 8 months and physically I feel better and mentally, I wonder if I should have stuck it out. I enjoyed school a lot. Recently I was reading an article in Landscape Architecture magazine about Brad Goldberg, an artist who trained as a landscape architect and was inspired.

I’m not interested in designing golf courses or high end residential developments, I want to do what he does! Integrating art into the landscape based on site impressions and intent.

Today, I decided to share a first site impression of a vacant lot that became our focus for 1/2 a semester during last fall’s LA studio 1. The site is (was) a vacant lot behind Union Station in Denver, CO that was being developed into another commercial venture. I chose to make a quilt of my impression gathered from actual photos and “artifacts” gathered on site. Interestingly, the site as I saw it is not historically accurate. The site has undergone many different incarnations throughout the city’s history from Native American encampments, to pioneer shanties, to railyards to the vacant littered lot that housed homeless people. Soon it will be a gleaming new urban block. If only the land could talk!