Bloom 2013

Almost a year late, but here is the story of my involvement in Bloom in the Park garden show last year.

Tim Austen's Gold winning garden at bloom

Outdoor classroom under
construction during spring 2013 

Picking up icy cold stones in January of 2013 as the winter was slowly easing its grip on the country, I powered on through the cold in a bid to get my outdoor classroom project completed for my May deadline.
It was during this time that I was contacted by renowned Irish landscape designer Tim Austen. A regular medal winner at Bloom, Tim was designing a large garden for the competition and was wondering if I would be interested in creating one of my mosaic panels as a centre piece for his garden.   

Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Black Barlow’ standing proud in front of my mosaic panel.  

Being a fan of Tim's previous show gardens, I was delighted to be a part of his latest garden.

Tim Austen's Giardino della mostra 

As Tim explains on his website  Giardino della mostra, translating generally from the Italian as “exhibition garden” or “garden of exhibits,” is a garden that encourages you to design your own garden to a strong theme whilst referring to the fact that a good garden is formed from the sum of its parts. The concept and layout are, in part, inspired by Ireland’s only permanent exhibition of show gardens at Gardenworld, Kilquade (the National Garden Exhibition Centre), Co. Wicklow. Here a wonderful collection of individual gardens, arranged around the central avenue, collectively inspire and encourage gardeners at all levels to follow a design in their own gardens. The central avenue, with water features and arches are the main elements that are referenced in Giardino della mostra, along with beech hedging that forms a soft backdrop to the garden. Moving through the garden, areas of differing character are also seen.

Tim Austen's Giardino della Mostra

Unfortunately for me the garden show was on the weekend before the completion date for my outdoor classroom project so this meant that I would be spending many weekends over the next few months in the studio.

When making mosaic panels (as well as other stone art pieces) I try and see if the client has any connection with any particular stone. In this case, as Tim is a proud Wicklow man, and golden granite being the stone of Wicklow, we decided to incorporate granite into the mosaic.
So my first task was breaking up chunks of granite into usable pieces for the mosaic.

At work in the studio with help from my lovely wife. 

As the workload started to mount up, working on both the outdoor classroom and the show garden, I called in reinforcements to help. Help with the mosaic came from my wonderful supportive wife Christine who came and helped out with completing the mosaic work.

Christine cleaning the mirror

Back on site, work was commencing with the garden. There was some friendly rivalry between designers on site, and they were often seen walking the grounds checking out the competition. It was for this reason that Tim wanted to keep the mosaic secret only to be installed for the big reveal at the end. The framework for the mosaic did have to be installed earlier in the build, so to keep people guessing 'flatscreen TV here' was written on the framework to throw the rivals off.

Installing the mosaic. Photo Tim Austen

   Tim had a really great crew working with him on the garden, and it took most of them to help me get the mosaic into place. Made of natural stone and cement, it weighed well over 200kg. 

The finished piece. 220cmx 120cm granite, Liscannor sandstone and mirror mosaic panel by Stone Art

Tim was also keen for me to be involved in two of the other stone features in the garden, the old forest-like dry stone wall and one of the water features. As I was short on time I thought this would be a great opportunity for some of The Dry Stone Wall Association of Ireland to get involved in the project. Two good friends of mine from the DSWAI Ken Curran and Alex Panteleyenko  took over the responsibility for this from me and did a really wonderful job of making a dry stone wall look like it has been sitting there for decades. 

Dry stone wall built by DSWAI members Ken Curran and Alex Panteleyenko. Photo Ken Curran

Finished wall surrounded with woodland shade planting and a bronze sculpture by Eamonn Ceannt  

Limestone pebble water feature by Stone Art

Unlike the mosaic panel, the water feature had to be made on site. Tim was inspired by the free flowing pebble work of UK artist Johnny Clasper and wanted something similar. I first contacted Johnny to see if he wanted to come over to do it but unfortunately he was busy with show gardens in the UK at the same time. So I decided to do it myself. So I would spend the next three days on my knees in the garden building the water feature, and it would have been even longer had Alex Panteleyenko not stuck around for an extra day after finishing the dry stone wall to help get me started with the water feature.

Myself and Alex setting the first stones in the water feature. Photo Tim Austen

Slow progress.

The finished piece.

I was delighted to see Tim win Gold for the garden. It was wonderful to be part of the whole process and look forward to future involvement in the show. It was great to see the reactions to the garden over the festival weekend. Tim's garden proved to be a big hit with many of the 110,000+ visitors who attended the show over the four days of the event.

Some of the 110,000+ people who visited Bloom in the Park last year 

The President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins and his wife chilling out by my mosaic.

Delicate blue flowers of Camassia cusickii (Cussick's camas)

Mosaic reflected on wet tiles on Tim Austen's Giardino della Mostra

Evening shot of the water features. Photo courtesy of Tim Austen

For more information about the garden and its designer check out Tim Austen's Website http://www.timaustengardendesigns.com/

If you have time check out this great short film about Tim's road to Bloom and the building of the show garden. Well worth a watch. 

Thanks again to Tim Austen for letting me be involved in the wonderful garden. I would also like to make a very special thanks to Alex who after Bloom was over came and helped me for a day to finish off the outdoor classroom which I am pleased to say also got finished on time.

Also of note. I custom make these mosaic panels in all shapes and sizes so be sure to contact me with your enquiries should you want one for your garden.

Can tradespeople be artists? Lets ask Johnny Clasper.

Stone mosaic by Johnny Clasper

Can tradespeople be artists?
An interesting question which is being explored by a new Irish series on TG4 at the moment called 'Dullamullóg'

Launched last Sunday 13th January, the show follows six tradespeople who take on the challenge of creating a piece of critically acclaimed art.

Each tradesperson is paired up with a professional artist who helps them with their work. The final piece is then put in amongst professional art works which are all scrutinised by art critic Ciaran Bennett who then has to decide which piece is made by the tradesperson.

Art Critic Ciaran Bennet

The show features renowned Irish artists Cliodna Cussen, Peadar Lamb and Turner nominated Liam de Frinse. The first episode follows Eamonn O'Neill, a Tree Surgeon from Shankill, Co. Dublin paired with professional sculptor Séighean Ó'Draoi.

Episode two pairs plasterer and bricky Gearóid Ó Ceannabhái, from Dublin, with the great Irish stone sculptor Cliodna Cussen.

Bricky Gearoid on the show.

An interesting show, worth checking out. Screens at 8.30pm on TG4. Repeated the following Tuesday at 11.30pm. The series will run for six weeks. Can also be played back on the TG4 website watch it here.
I will look forward to seeing the next episode. 


This show reminded me of a great tradesperson cum stone artist that I have been meaning to highlight for a while now.
This person being Johnny Clasper.

Artist Johnny Clasper sitting on front of one of his flowing stonework art pieces.

Before becoming obsessed with stone, Johnny started off as a bricky. In fact from an early age his weekends were spent working with his father (a builder) as a labourer on building sites. Johnny quickly got promoted from broom and wheelbarrow to trowel and hammer. Johnny said that something happened when he was handed that rusty old trowel and heavy split handled lump hammer in his hands, a magic feeling inside. "With these tools I can build (a feeling I still get today when I pick up certain tools). A short while after I saved up and bought myself some decent tools. I was one proud 16 year old lad!"

Detail from another stone mosaic by Jonny Clasper

A fast learner and keen to learn anything he could, Johnny put himself into college to study brickwork "At last something I really wanted to learn and really enjoyed doing".
Johnny became top of the class and earned the student of the year award 1997. "College taught me all about the modern ways of building while my time at work I learned many traditional techniques of laying stone, at the time I was always drawn to stone.. so many ways to lay it as opposed to bricks."

Stunning stone wall by Johnny Clasper. I do love this wall.

The next 5 years or so Johnny worked on many stone houses, extensions and barn conversions before going self employed. Years passed doing the same things, that is until he started to read up and practice drystone walling. 

"This changed everything, without the mortar separating the stone, i became more in-tune and aware of the stone, studying the grain, natural shape and textures, different results and finishes were possible, everything was now falling into place or was it?

it was always my dream and goal to build something that hadn't been done before, but everything seemed to have already been done by someone..

I had thoughts of somehow bringing stone to life but how?

a wall will always be a wall or will it?"

Drystone sculpture 'the seed' by Johnny Clasper

In 2010 Johnny decided to rent a small studio where he hoped to create something that wasn't bound by the rules of building or drystone walling “both seem to contradict each other”

He started by making a seed sculpture with leftover roof slate, the pinnacle moment and the start of his creative journey.

“But the seed sculpture wasn't quite what I had in mind” explains Johnny. “I wanted movement in the stone somehow”.

Johnny's stone scorpion sculpture

"I had an image of an attacking scorpion in my mind made with jagged stacked slate and polished black limestone, materials I had kept from previous jobs.

against all advice from my sculptor friends, family and my own instinct telling me not to do it, I decided to create the scorpion (or the illusion I saw in my mind)

the scorpion was an instant success and the door to my creative part of my mind blew wide open!"

Dry stone stream by Johnny Clasper

From here Johnny started experimenting with flow. “If stone can be brought to life maybe it could become fluidic and flow like water would?”.

"Any chance I got I would arrange pebbles or shards of slate into flowing patterns or drains, mimicking the flow of water spiralling away."

Johnny's swirly pebble path in the gold winning garden at the 2012 Harrogate Spring Flower Show  

Last year Johnny was involved in the construction of a gold awarded show garden at the 2012 Harrogate Spring Flower Show. Part of Johnny’s design brief was to lay a stone slab and pebble path. Most people, if not pretty much everybody else would have been content with pebbles neatly spread between the flagstones. But Johnny being Johnny felt compelled to spend what should have been a five minute job into a nine hour labour of love, transforming what (in my opinion) was otherwise a nice ordinary show garden into an extraordinary gold winning one.    

Johnny's wishing well

Johnny has lots more great work on his website www.johnnyclasper.co.uk  but he is also a great man for the facebook so be sure to give his facebook page a like and keep up to date with all his work. 

More flowing pebbles by Johnny Clasper

Can tradespeople be artists? Hell yeah!