Spruill Art Gallery Garden Update (work in progress):

Be Chipper...

...and spread fresh wood chips at Dunwoody's newest community garden at Spruill Art Gallery!

In the middle of this pile, you will find happiness.  No?  Well, certainly, you will find adults and children alike nearby with the sillies from the labor.  That's gotta bring on some good feelings.

Come on by with a shovel, some gloves and a large container, bucket or wheelbarrow at 5:30 PM today, Tuesday, May 10th to help spread some mulch around the new beds!  F Bob, oh, sorry, I mean Farmer Bob will be there.  You won't want to miss that!  It's always entertaining when he's around!

Location:  Spruill Art Gallery Garden, 4681 Ashford Dunwoody Road
Time:  5:30 PM until we finish or get hungry or get sick of each other or the task.

Hope to see you there!

When Words are not Enough

How do you say thank you?  I mean, when you really mean it.  When you feel gratitude with every heartbeat.  When you are so full of it that it spills over your eyelashes and renders you incapable of truly explaining what it means to you.  When the giver, maybe, doesn't even realize the depth of what they have given you.  I am not completely sure, but I imagine it has to have something to do with being the best caretaker of that gift.  Of being able to recall what that gift meant to you on the day it was given even as time passes -6 months from now, 12 months from now, 2 years from now- and acting accordingly.  Treasuring it as you do the ones that gave it.  Over the past several weeks, I have been the recipient of many gifts.  Truth is, they weren't necessarily intended as gifts for me, but it felt like it to me none-the-less.  Some bore gifts of time and knowledge.  Others bore gifts of plants, hoses and fertilizer.  Many others reminded me to laugh along the way.  Mostly, I received the gift of friendship.  And out of that friendship, the new bonds formed and the old bonds strengthened in clay and biodynamic planting mix, came something incredible, inconceivable and truly good.  Here it is:

2 raised beds, 3 in ground beds at the new Spruill Art Gallery Garden

So, thank you!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Even though it is not 100% finished yet and there is still work to be done.  I want to take a moment to say thank you for not chalking it up to a lost cause and walking away when so little money was raised.  Thank you for finding a way around the obstacles.  Thank you for your faith in this garden and your trust in me.  Thank you for making this fun.  And, thank you for being my champion.  I will honor your gifts by putting my heart and soul into our new mutual friend, The Spruill Art Gallery Garden with harvests of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, and sweet potatoes which will be donated to feed the hungry.  It's many gifts that keep on giving!

Spruill Gallery Garden - Help, Do, Teach

This is the method my Grandmother used to teach my Mom how to prepare a Thanksgiving feast.  When the time came, my Mom used it to teach my sister and I.  First, you help someone else prepare one.  Next, you're on the hook to create the meal, from start to finish, with help from Mom, of course.  Finally, you teach someone else how to do it because it reinforces what you've learned and you are not likely to forget what you've taught.

This method can also be applied to gardening.  The Spruill Gallery Garden is a great opportunity to learn how to garden.  And, it is an equally great opportunity for you veteran gardeners out there to teach someone else what you know about gardening.  There will be folks out there at all levels.  The funny thing about gardening is you can be helping, doing and teaching all at the same time!  There is always something new to be learned.  So, come on out and join the fun!

This is a call for volunteers!  

Installation is scheduled for early May.  There is much to do before then.  

Come for as long or as little as you can.  Just come!
As a bonus, those who volunteer will get first dibs on the old cinder blocks that will be removed from the old beds.  They will be given away for FREE!  These blocks are great to use as a stable base to raise a rain barrel off the ground, to border a garden or create a green wall, to build a firepit or compost bin or even to elevate a bee hive.  I have even seen one crafty person turn a cinder block into an attractive bird house.

Work Day Schedule:

Prep Day - Monday, April 25th, 9 am - 1 pm
Prep Day - Friday, April 29th, 9 am - 1 pm
Prep Day - Saturday, April 30th, 12 noon - 4 pm

Location:

4681 Ashford Dunwoody Road
Atlanta, Georgia 30338

Please email me at shawnbard@gmail.com if you are able to help or if you have any questions!

Spruill Gallery gets a garden.

It's April 1st, is this tomfoolery?  No, it is not!  And, I could not be more excited!

Read about it here and here.  Pattie Baker and Bob Lundsten, along with Spruill Art Gallery's Hope Cohn, are the think tank behind this great idea.

Beginning right now, right this very second, I am leading an initiative to launch and run the planned vegetable garden at the Spruill Gallery in Dunwoody, GA.  And, I need your help!  There are so many ideas flowing, it is hard to know where to start.

Oh, wait.  I know.  We need to start with the basics.  We need bodies and we need money.

We need to raise at least $3000 during the month of April, or this garden will not happen.

Please, if Spruill has done good things for you, for your kids, for your families, over the years (yes, I am talking to you, remember that time our kids did camp together at Spruill? Or the jewelery making class you took?), now is your chance to give back to Spruill.  This is a unique opportunity to do something new and innovative in our community.  It's art.  It's food.  It's green.  It's happening NOW.  And, you can be a part of it.

Donate by sending a check to: Spruill Gallery, 4681 Ashford Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, GA 30338. Be sure to write in the subject line that it is for the garden. (A Paypal option should be live in about a week.)

The garden is scheduled to be installed May 2.  An art opening for an installation titled Architecture in the Garden is scheduled for June 2.