As you wander up the path from the main entrance to Marin Art and Garden Center, you might wonder at an unusual new sight off to your left, nestled in among the trunks of the crape myrtle trees. A grove of not-quite-plants has sprouted up, the creation of Berkeley-based artist Marcia Donahue. A fanciful suggestion of a cross between fungus and grass, these ceramic sculptures are at
once both remarkably lifelike and wonderfully outlandish—as Marcia says, they are “real, but not alive.”
Artist Marcia Donahue installs “Amongus” in the gardens
You are welcome to step in among these sculptures, and even touch them gently—please leave pets on the path!
The sculptures are made of layers of different stoneware clays, which the artist chooses for their beautiful natural colors. Marcia stacks the clay, using an extruder to help form the organic shapes, and carving pieces to resemble chanterelle, trametes, and boletus fungi, and columns of bamboo in a time-consuming process. This installation is composed of individual units that Marcia has assembled on site, in a shaded spot she chose for its natural frame of tree trunks and half-wild undergrowth.
Marcia describes these pieces as a “horticultural joke,” which is meant to amuse rather than educate even as it draws the inquisitive eye. Her work intertwines with natural settings at many different locations around the country.
Visit Woh Hei Yuen Park in San Francisco to see her sculpture “Five Carved Stones;” Chanticleer Gardens in Pennsylvania also features Marcia’s works in stone as well as an early version of her Bambusa ceramica. Her own garden, at 3017 Wheeler Street in Berkeley, is open to the public on Sunday afternoons from 1–5 pm. And of course, closest of all, you can find her artwork in The Shop, where you could choose an acorn or a narcissus bulb to bring a little of this fantastic world into your own home or garden.
