Leslie Codina’s garden towers rise at the L.A. County Arboretum
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New artwork at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden is as colorful as the peacocks strolling around the grounds. Four sculptural towers designed, crafted and donated by Ontario artist Leslie Codina celebrate winter, spring, summer and fall in a 10,000-square-foot display of ornamental and edible plants called the Garden for All Seasons.
Codina creates whimsical stacks of color, pattern and form. Her hand-built earthenware “beads” are fired in vibrant glazes, eye-catching patterns and exaggerated shapes that suggest thorns, leaves, flowers, tendrils and bugs. Each piece has a hole at its center so it can be slid over a metal rod.
“They are my crazy interpretation of what’s already in the garden,” she says. For more on the artist’s work, including how much it will cost you to pick up similar works, click to the jump.
Codina sells her garden sculptures for $400 to $650 at local fairs, including the arboretum’s L.A. Garden Show each spring. The artist worked with garden curator Darlene Kelly to come up with the four-season theme and determine where the pieces would be installed.
At 9 to 15 feet high, the spires have more than 50 individual beads and are larger than Codina’s typical work.
“The scale is huge,’ she says. ‘The base shapes are the size of a beach ball. When we put them all together, they look hugely impressive. They complement the garden and the garden complements the sculpture.”
The sculptures follow the seasons, Codina says. Purple and sage-colored designs symbolize winter; spring is a spectrum of green; summer has hot pinks, oranges and greens; and fall is depicted with mustard yellow, olive green and red hues.
Unlike Codina’s smaller pieces, which often have branch-like armatures, the sculptures at the arboretum are mostly cylindrical shapes. “I made them very peacock-safe,” the artist says. “I didn’t want to give the peacocks any place to perch.”
-- Debra Prinzing
Photo credit: Debra Prinzing