Product Description

A beautifully illustrated book, Fern House is a first person narrative about a year in Deborah Schenck's Vermont garden. Broken into four seasonal sections, her inspiring reflections on gardening are paired with her lush Polaroid transfers and soft watercolor illustrations. Each section features in introduction to gardening in that particular season and each page is a crystalized moment bringing the reader into the experience of gardening. This book will be a perfect gift for the artist and gardner alike.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1641371 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 112 pages

From Amazon.com
Moving into a 19th-century federal brick house in Vermont, artist Deborah Schenck decided to re-create the luxurious English country gardens of her youth at her new home. Through the first year at Fern House, Schenck documented the growth and transformation of her home, gardens, and family. Fern House simply and beautifully illustrates this progression.

Surrounded by dozens of types of ferns (including horsetail, lace-leaf, and the edible fiddlehead), Fern House was just the kind of place Schenck was looking for to settle down in and join a small community. The birth of her second child, coupled with this new home, inspired her to keep a visual journal of the changes during this very special year--and it helped her to balance the daily joys and challenges of motherhood with her artistic passions. "My artwork celebrates the importance of a single image--the portrait that holds all the perfume, color, and detail of the garden in one perfect bloom," she says. "They are quiet images, and they invite people to slow down, to focus and contemplate the small but important details of our world that are so often overlooked." Schenck's images are lovely. Their composition is meticulously planned but appears beautifully natural. She often uses a triptych or paneled approach, creating groups of a series of bright red summer blooms or russet, brown, and gold autumn leaves and nuts. Fern House is a sensuous and charming pleasure that makes you feel that you are taking a moment to relax in a cool, mossy grotto or next to a koi-filled pond. The text, written by Lauri Berkenkamp, is quietly poetic and captures the graceful elegance of Schenck's images. --Dana Van Nest

About the Author
Author:Bom and raised in England, Deborah Schenck grew up surrounded by country gardens. She picked up her first camera in college and traveled the world capturing on film momentous events, landscapes, and wildlife. After all of her world travels, she finds herself in Vermont in a village not unlike the one she grew up in. With her husband and two children she has settled into a 19th century federal style home. Fern House celebrates her return to country gardens.