How to Build a Tree:
THE ARTIST’S GARDEN MARCH-SEPTEMBER
How to Build a Tree: The Artist's Garden March-September * continues a perennial theme in Lanzetta’s work: the intersection of culture, history, and botany. In this handmade sketchbook, Lanzetta collages images from garden catalogues of the North American “cultivars” growing in her Long Island City garden, a property historically called Hunter’s Point Farm. The sketchbook chronicles by month, the floral unfolding of her garden, from early spring crocuses to late autumn sedum. Lanzetta’s personal family history is reflected in the garden’s hostas and forsythia, transplanted from her late grandfather’s property, an Italian immigrant (1900-1978), and avid gardener.
With the inclusion of common or whimsical names of plant varieties, the sketchbook also addresses the (unsettling) horticultural science of cultivars. Cultivars are plants intentionally selected from a natural species and grown through human intervention. Popular ornamentals such as hostas, daffodils, and roses are cultivars carefully bred for desirable colors, forms, and hardiness. The sketchbook celebrates, but questions the intense hybridization and GMO practices that breed plants to develop stunning, unusual blossoms, and to flourish in formerly inhospitable places.
* created for the Brooklyn Library Sketchbook Project
