What is jardinscape?

It took me several years to be able to explain what I was about in a coherent understandable way, although intuitively it is part of me. In my world as an artist everything starts with the urban garden.

The urban garden is a complex mix of flora, structures, class and cultural values, traces of animal, insect and human life, symbols and spirits. The garden strongly delineates the cycles of the seasons through the cycle of life. Death, or fading back into the earth precedes regeneration and new life.

Through drawing, photography, mixed media and textile techniques (dye, stitch) I want to take the small things that I see and make them big to show the beauty of the line, colour and texture as well as attempting to communicate my observations of peace, strength and endurance that persists throughout my urban garden experience.

The word play on landscape came about quite indirectly but with time has become more appropriate than ever. Most of you know that 'jardin' is the French word for garden. It is also used in gemmology to describe the inclusions in natural emeralds. The 'jardin' or inclusions indicate the difference between natural and scientifically created emeralds.

When I had the opportunity to choose a surname for myself I chose Jardin. As it turns out this became a direction as much as a name and since then has become a focus.

I prefer to write jardinscape without a capital in the way that air, water and other words describing our environment are common nouns.