Every once in a while you read about someone who just flies above the radar. So exceptional. In his/her own category.

I chanced upon such an artist/architect in the April issue of The World of Interiors: I was struck by the work of Fernando Caruncho, who is considered, I learned, the greatest landscape designer of our times. I had no idea.

And, based on what I saw in this one article, I would agree.

However, what really struck me was HOW he works. And how he came into his career. Apparently, he was a philosophy student when he designed his first garden. And it’s his philosophy which guides how he designs:

My obsession is with vibration of light,… and the correspondence between light, water and the green…Space changes the light continuously,… your perception of light changes continuously as you move through it.

His designs begin with the “dome of the sky” and he uses water elements to reflect it. The changing foliage completes the picture .

How unusual is this way of thinking about the garden? Starting with the sky? The surround. The “room” in which his art exists. And then bringing that surround into the art with reflective water. Doing all this while also playing with the elements that most gardeners consider their only focus: the plants that grow.

And he himself not starting off as a “designer” with years of school learning. But working with vibrations of light. Reflecting light. Changing light.

And lighting the way for me. For others. To be inspired to see the larger picture.

The sky that “domes” us all.

That frames all our art.