Tag: gardens

Inspiration from Nature

my name is: Sarah Ferone

i make: Illustrations (and tend a backyard garden!)

what inspires me about the getty is: I do a lot of editorial illustration and some food illustration as well. I look at nature a lot to get inspiration from form and texture and color. We’re [Sarah and her partner, Casey] also novice backyard gardeners. We have a friend who does gardening professionally so she’s opened our eyes to what’s out there and introduced us to the names of things and interesting plants, pointing out stuff that we might have overlooked. When I come to gardens, now, I feel like I’ve got a bigger perspective and recognize and appreciate more.

to me, inspiration is: Inspiration is starting to see connections between things and seeing something in a new light, either by encountering something new that I’ve never seen before that kind of makes me go, “Wow, that’s incredible,” or even seeing something old with fresh eyes. This is my second time here at the museum and I love seeing the paintings again and coming out to the garden in a different season, seeing things in a new light.

I feel like every time you approach it, you have a different mindset and perspective or things reveal their different character to you.

All of a sudden, something connects in your head and you’re like, “How did that happen? And now I have to get it out. Got to sketch or write that down.”

Finding Nature in L.A.

my name is: Omar Brownson

i make: Change

Omar Brownson is the executive director of the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation, a nonprofit that is working with Frank Gehry to transform the river into a place that brings nature and people together. “Inspiration is the art of dreaming,” Omar told us, “and then actually making that dream a reality.”

Omar grew up on a Native American reservation in Washington State, and his family’s move to urban L.A. came as a shock. “L.A. was this very forbidding place. All of a sudden, I could only run to the end of the block.” He enjoys being high atop the Getty Center hill, he told #GettyInspired, and finding quiet moments in Robert Irwin’s Central Garden—a spot that offers a dramatic contrast with the urban maze of L.A. “To have both of those in the same place is a gift.”