Celebrating 10 years of inspiration with a second act to the iconic Blue Tree

CornerStone Sonoma, announces the grand opening of this year’s new garden by Suzanne Biaggi, featuring a New Zealand artist’s debut in America, the challenge of replacing an infamous Blue Tree, and CornerStone’s first garden incorporating sound.

Sonoma, Calif. —May 28^th, 2013 — The Public is invited to join the Opening Celebration of “Ecology of Place”, by Suzanne Biaggi, a garden which is sure to delight and enhance the minds of visitors with the interplay of the fabricated as a context to better connect with the natural.

“This project represents what I am most passionate about and what inspires me,” shares Suzanne Biaggi, the Petaluma based landscape architect and site-specific sculptor of this new garden. “It highlights the importance of ecological balance to the future of our planet, and is about restoring what was once here – wetlands, and it’s about what is here now –vineyards, which will be symbolized by sculptural vines.”

“I remember walking through the site and being so focused on restoring the wetlands that I almost forgot about the more recent history of this space – The Blue Tree!” muses Biaggi about the whimsical, and highly visible - Blue Tree, created by Claude Cormier that had to be taken down in 2007 for safety reasons. Conceived from the idea of Photoshop where one can erase the unwanted from a landscape, Cormier sought to “erase” a dying pine by wrapping it, branch by branch with 60,000 Sonoma-sky- blue Christmas tree balls. The tree did not disappear as planned and because of its proximity to the highway, became an instant beacon for the site, drawing thousands of visitors to its branches.

Once it came to Biaggi that the space needed another tree, she spent months pouring over Art Journals and searching the internet for the right artist. It was not an easy feat competing with an installation that received such widespread publicity as the cover of the style section in the NY Times. Biaggi eventually found her answer in New Zealander, Regan Gentry whose 2006 work Skeleton Trees caught her eye.“It was a wonderful invitation to receive out of the blue,” says Gentry, perhaps unknowingly inciting irony about his invitation from Biaggi to create his own iconic tree in the exact location of the infamous blue predecessor. The public curiously waits to see what this transition of work (from the Cirque du Soleil set designer, Cormier, to this country boy from NZ) will have in store for them.

“Visitors can expect to have not seen this work before,” says Regan about his wire tree. “It’s like a pencil drawing of a tree has released itself from the page and taken steroids. I have heard that people see my work as rather literal sometimes, but I figure that’s a lack of engagement on their part. My work is often physically confronting, where engineers or fabricators might enjoy the piece more than the highbrow crowd, which is fine with me.”

The public is invited to come “engage” with Regan’s work for themselves, both at the Grand Opening of “Ecology of Place” on July 18^th, and also for a more interactive experience in the weeks leading up to the opening by visiting CornerStone weekdays to view Gentry and Biaggi at work on their installations.

“A twenty foot wire tree construction in the winds of the Sonoma Valley, as well as chance to be part of these artists’ creative process, should make for an exciting next few

weeks,” says Chris Hougie, founder and co-owner of CornerStone. “We are especially excited about this new garden because it marks a decade of landscape architects and designers coming to the site to create beautiful, compelling and thought provoking gardens. This particular garden, ‘Ecology of Place’, explores the interplay of past, present, and the future of native landscapes, a topic that appropriately commemorates the ever-evolving history of CornerStone itself thus far, and actually reflects where we are as a community around the gardens themselves. We started as a Festival of gardens, charging an admission fee with the idea that the gardens would change out annually, only to discover we couldn’t part with the gardens so quickly. “ CornerStone now adds the work of one new landscape designer each year and the gardens are free of charge, finding support for them from the community they serve instead of from admission fees; a model that has allowed for a shift in relevancy of the CornerStone experience—instead of just something to see, the gardens are now something to be a part of. This year they introduced Kickstarter as a fundraising tool (an online funding platform for creative projects), which allowed even more people to invest in the CornerStone vision.

The previous garden added to the CornerStone collection was “White Cloud” created by the design team of Andy Cao and Xavier Perrot. The installation received

widespread media attention, including the cover of the Datebook section in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the cover of the Home & Garden section in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Coming with no less acclaim, the work of this year’s artist, Suzanne Biaggi, can be seen in public art collections in such cities as San Francisco and Santa Rosa, as well as in notable private collections such as Lionel Richi and lead guitar player for Metallica, Kirk Hammitt. Suzanne won the hearts and minds of CornerStone owners and visitors four years ago with her work for a three day garden show, “Future Feast in the Garden of Flow/Accumulation, which took the prestigious CH-D award in 2011 for best landscape design, and has been sought after for a permanent installation on the site ever since.

This year’s garden, “Ecology of Place” is about discovery and contemplation. The entire garden cannot be seen at one time because plants from the wetlands, hedges, and berms obscure the view. One must snake through the garden’s pathway then pause and contemplate, in the provided custom seating and shade, to come to one’s own conclusions about the garden’s lessons and truths; perhaps listening to what the garden “whispers” about the memory of the artists late brother Phil, to whom the garden honors.

“Wind will be seen and heard in the patterns created as it passes over sculptural vineyards, making this our first garden incorporating the medium of sound,” states CornerStone co-owner Teresa Raffo, who invites everyone to visit this and all of the novel gardens at CornerStone. “The gardens offer us the chance to see the inside of some of the greatest minds of our time. We get the luxury of enjoying, in one small garden, these artist’s lifetime study and devotion to interpreting and enlightening our world in ways the average person couldn’t find the time or capacity to do for themselves”.

Garden Opening Events

Garden Grand Opening Celebration
Thursday, July 18, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Cost: FREE

The evening’s events will commence with a reception featuring the wines of Poseidon Vineyard & Obsidian Ridge Winery, one of the newest wineries on site at CornerStone and light passed hors d’oeuvres, graciously provided by Park 121 Café beginning at 5:30pm. At 6:30 in the barn, CornerStone owners, Chris Hougie and Teresa Raffo will introduce Suzanne Biaggi, who will speak about her exciting new work, as well as introduce New Zealand artist Regan Gentry, who will talk about his experiences with this project. Suzanne will then introduce the sound artist Nick Nvankijdt who contributed to the project. Suzanne will also introduce Richard Dale, head of the Sonoma Ecology Center who will talk about the Center’s partnership with CornerStone and love of this project. She will finally introduce Tony Bertotti of Bertotti Landscaping who was instrumental in building this garden. No host dinner open to the public, with a full meal (3 choices), including a glass of wine and dessert ($27.50/person) is being specially offered for this event from the restaurant on site Park 121. Classical guitar playing in the Olive Courtyard will accompany dinner and, it will also be a great opportunity to talk to the artist. Email [email protected] to make a dinner reservation.

Volunteer Workdays
June 7th from 11:00 am – 3:00pm & June 9th from 11:00 am – 3:00pm
Like many of the gardens at CornerStone, this installation contains elements that will need to be handmade. We are looking for people who have strong, steady hands to join us for this fun and productive volunteer gathering, which will be facilitated by CornerStone owner Teresa Raffo, and will include a break for a complimentary lunch (graciously provided by Park 121 restaurant), and wine toast to conclude the workday. Please RSVP to participate: [email protected]

Tours (Ongoing)
As part of their ongoing partnership with CornerStone and Suzanne, the Sonoma Ecology Center will be leading tours through the installation (once it is open) to demonstrate and teach how one can restore native habitat in their own personal gardens. The public is invited to enjoy these complimentary tours, available by appointments via [email protected]

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