When artist Suzy Hendrix envisioned two installations for Dalstrom
Park, she was thinking of a traditional meditation garden.
But then her garden grew.
“I just don’t think Americans can meditate the same way the Japanese
do,” she said. “It also struck me that in this part of town, it feels
like the country, but there’s also this urban thing going on, too.”
Set in raked concrete, each of the garden’s large stones are covered
in mosaic tiles, creating curvy vines and colorful flowers.
The UrbanArt Commission will host a dedication at the South Memphis
park Saturday, December 5th, at 11 a.m. Memphis mayor A C Wharton and
council member Edmund Ford Jr. are both scheduled to speak.
The project was part of Memphis’ Percent for Art program and was
sparked by a city park services plan to add other amenities, such as
playgrounds and picnic areas to the park.
“The sculptures are sentinels,” Hendrix said of the boulders, which
mark both ends of an approximately one-mile trail through the park.
“Initially, we were looking for a marker for the park,” said
Elizabeth Alley, director of public art at the UrbanArt Commission.
Because of the size of the trees and the intersection at Shelby
Drive and Weaver, the marker would need to be double the size of the
project’s largest boulder to be noticeable from the street.
“The largest one is about 6 feet tall, so they’re human scale,”
Alley said. “It makes more sense to have them where they can only be
experienced by walking up to them.”
